Jon Montgomery is aware of all too properly what it takes to hurl your self headfirst down an icy skeleton observe with the world watching.
The previous Olympic champion believes one of many younger Canadian athletes getting ready to compete on the Milan Cortina Video games this week has a “enormous benefit” — her age.
Hallie Clarke is 21 years outdated, however possesses the maturity and psychological fortitude of a extra veteran athlete, stated Montgomery, who received gold on house soil on the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Video games.
“Hallie, as a world champion, as a world junior champion, is competing past her years by way of the psychological side of issues,” he stated.
“If you happen to ask me, it’s spectacular to look at. It’s thrilling to see. And I’ve received nothing however hope in my coronary heart for her being one of the best model of Hallie Clarke on the day that issues most, which is that this Friday and Saturday.”
Clarke, who hails from Belleville, Ont., has already made skeleton historical past.
In 2024, she turned the youngest lady within the sport’s historical past to be topped world champion at simply 19. She’s additionally the primary athlete to carry the senior and junior world championships on the identical time.
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Clarke will make her Olympic debut in Italy this week. The opposite Canadian within the subject will probably be Jane Channell of North Vancouver, B.C., who’s set to compete in her third Olympics.
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Being younger and inexperienced may be “wildly helpful” in pressure-packed sporting moments, stated Montgomery.
“I feel anyone who seems at her age and suggests to themselves that, ‘Properly, you have to be older,’ is each deluding themselves and being dishonest. You don’t have to be something,” he stated.
“Whenever you’re 35 years outdated, and also you’ve reached the top of your sport for the very first time in your life, you’ve additionally received all these added years of wanting constructing as much as that second in time. And it will be onerous to not place an undue quantity of stress upon your self.
“However if you’re younger, if you’re 21, if you don’t have 16 years in a sport certain up in a single second in time, I feel you have got a chance to be freer, definitely, of the psychological load that exists in that point and area. And to low cost it as a bonus is being short-sighted.”
For a younger athlete like Clarke, racing must be about having enjoyable and being grateful for the second, added Montgomery.
He remembers his personal Olympic expertise — which included a stroll by means of the village of Whistler, B.C., carrying a celebratory pitcher of beer — not solely as enjoyable, however as a “as soon as in a lifetime alternative.”
“I used to be at house, I had my household and pals there. I used to be comfy, and I used to be assured in my preparation to execute,” he stated. “I used to be by no means assured that I might win the gold or that it was mine to take, and others had been simply going to need to cope with me. I used to be solely ever racing the clock.”
Now a public speaker and the host of the truth TV present “The Wonderful Race Canada,” Montgomery finds it onerous to consider the Vancouver Video games had been 16 years in the past.
He hasn’t been very concerned in skeleton over that point, however his love for the game stays.
“That doesn’t imply that it’s ever removed from my coronary heart or my thoughts or consideration,” he stated.
“Every part that I just about get to do in the present day and from at the present time ahead is born out of components of what transpired in 2010 by means of sport, by means of competitors, by means of representing the Maple Leaf on the world’s biggest sporting stage on the Olympic Video games.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Feb. 11, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
