Bobsleigh: Cooke takes the brakes off in bid to move career forward

Barely two years ago, Gillian Cooke inhaled deeply, braced herself, and took a plunge into the icy unknown. There were few certainties offered as she switched from athletics - where she had been an accomplished jumper and vaulter - into the world of bobsleigh.

The gamble paid off handsomely when, in tandem with Nicola Minichiello, she secured a world championship winner's medal just four months later.

Heading into the mountains of Austria this week, the Edinburgh-based Scot will once more look ahead into the frozen abyss. Having scaled the mountain as a brakewoman, the 28-year-old will begin what she hopes is an ascent to the top as a driver at "Bobschool", a special training camp run under the tutelage of current and past performers. At least she will not be an absolute beginner, having undergone a brief induction earlier this year on the same run at Lake Placid where she claimed her world title.

"That's quite possibly the hardest track in the world," she declares. "Going to Lake Placid allowed me to find out if that is where I wanted my career to go. And I absolutely loved it."

At the outset of the long road to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, she has been teamed with Nicky McSweeney, another convert from athletics. Yet Cooke's ambitions have come at a heavy price. She been demoted to GB's second string and has also had to pass up the guaranteed Lottery funding which was on offer to a proven brakewoman. Instead, she must now dip into her savings.

"You do think 'are you doing the right thing?' but in my heart, I am. I don't want to be sitting in four years' time, and wonder 'what if?' I'll go out this year and at least I'll know whether my Olympic medal ambitions as a driver are realistic. But there's also the option, two years down the line, that if it isn't where my future lies, I can go back to pulling the brakes."

Cooke and McSweeney are up against the clock. Their first serious outing, in the Europa Cup, will come later this month in Innsbruck, followed by races in Italy and Germany. January's British Championships will further assess their progress. At that point, they must decide their readiness to join the leading players on the World Cup circuit.

"This winter will be about learning," she says. "Some other teams retired after the Olympics so there are gaps and loads of people looking to come into the sport and fill them. So why not us?"