USA Bobsled and Skeleton fronts bill as teams compete throughout World Cup season but equipment required is expensive and extensiveGETTY IMAGES
The U.S. Olympic men's bobsled team created their own calendar, called the Bob-Spread, which is the '19 "brainchild of photographer and push athlete Jimmy Reed and other bobsledders, who thought of it as a way to promote themselves and the sport," according to Glynn Hill of the WASHINGTON POST. The project -- "part Playgirl, part ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue -- didn't come to fruition until last summer." In the calendar, a "sculpted Blaine McConnell strides down the track in nothing but American flag bikini briefs, holding a bobsled helmet in his left hand." A "nude Manteo Mitchell, illuminated by the glow of a blue-tinted camera flash, assumes the starting position." It also includes Carlo Valdes, "mimicking [actor Burt] Reynolds’s iconic 1972 Cosmopolitan centerfold," laying "hairy and mustachioed, with his left hand placed strategically between his legs." Valdes "ditched Reynolds’s ashtray for a bobsled helmet." In addition to raising awareness for the sport, Valdes did it to "help offset the costs of his teammates’ Olympic journey." The "catalogue of equipment" required for Winter Olympians is "expensive and extensive." USA Bobsled and Skeleton "fronts the bill as teams compete throughout the World Cup season." Typically, USABS will "absorb the expenses for the top two American teams to compete in the World Cup." An additional team may compete on the secondary North American Cup circuit, which is "less costly," but requires teams to "be self-funded." Team member Charlie Volker said that he "doesn’t expect the Bob-Spread to become an annual release," although he could see a '26 calendar "ahead of the next Winter Games in Italy" (WASHINGTON POST, 2/11).
