All-American Swimmer Carsten Vissering Named to US National Team…in Bobsled?

Former USC star swimmer Carsten Vissering has been named to the US National Team in bobsled. Vissering joins a great tradition of elite athletes transitioning from other sports, including summer sports, into sledding events.

“Year one of the Olympic quadrennial is always exciting because you have a mix of athletes with a wealth of experience and success, and a crop of entirely new athletes just starting their careers,” said USA Bobsled/Skeleton Director of Sports Performance and Olympic gold medalist Curt Tomasevicz. “There’s a lot of opportunity for this team to grow and succeed this winter, and I’m personally looking forward to competitions returning to the U.S. this season.”

Vissering is one of 8 men selected to the pool of push athletes and represent the U.S. in World Cup competitions.

The U.S. has for decades used a unique recruiting scheme to fill out its bobsled teams. Specifically, they have tried to attract adult athletes from other sports. The most famous product from that system is Lolo Jones, a two-time champion in athletics in the 60 meter hurdles.

After disappointment at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Jones took up bobsledding. In 2012, she was named to the US National bobsled team. Alongside fellow track & field Olympian Tianna Madison, she was named to the same team as Vissering now joins.

Jones was selected as the brakewoman for the USA Team-3 sled at the 2014 Winter Olympics, placing 11th.

Other Summer Olympians to join the US bobsled team include Willie Davenport (track & field), Eddie Eagan (boxing), Vonetta Flowers (track & field), and Lauryn Williams (track & field). Former football star, and current US Senate candidate from Georgia, Herschel Walker, made the 1992 US Olympic Team in bobsled. His driver, Brian Shimer, was a former football player at Morehead State.

The sport has long prized football players for their speed and explosiveness on the ice. Randy Jones played football and ran track at Duke, winning a bronze medal at the 2002 Olympic Games in the four-man bobsled. That broke a 46-year US medal drought in men’s bobsled.

There are no known instances of a swimmer-to-bobsled transition like Vissering, though. Swimmers are aquatic animals, and those skills don’t always translate to dry land.

He’s not the only one to try, though. Colleen Fotsch, who was on the Cal NCAA Championship teams in 2011 and 2012, and who also pursued a career in elite Crossfitting, was chasing the goal of a spot on the US bobsled team, though a knee injury interrupted her chase.

Vissering swam at USC from 2015 through 2019. There, he won 9 All-America awards. As a senior, he won the Pac-12 title in the 100 yard breaststroke and finished 2nd at the NCAA Championships. He had three straight top three finishes in that event at NCAAs, and never finished lower than 2nd in the race at the Pac-12 Championships.

He also won an NCAA title in 2018 as part of USC’s 200 yard medley relay.

The 2019 NCAA Championships was Vissering’s last official swim meet. He has been documenting his bobsled training via his YouTube Channel.

The 2022 Bobsled and Skeleton World CUp starts at the end of November in Whistler, Canada, before two December stops in the US in Park City and Lake Placid. See the full schedule here.