Vic Emery was in his mid-20s when he first became interested in the sport that would earn him a gold medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics. It was only eight years prior that he had first fallen in love with the sport, after witnessing an event as a spectator at the 1956 Winter Olympics while on a tour of Europe. With his brother John, he founded the Laurentian Bobsledding Association in 1957 and in 1959 they were able to enter a team in the World Championships, where they were given advice and coaching from Italian champion Eugenio Monti. A mere three years later, their four-man team had finished in fourth at these games. Practice, however, was difficult, because the Canadian Olympic Committee refused to acknowledge the sport, going so far as to reject the idea of sending a bobsled team to the 1960 Winter Olympics. Thus, the Emery brothers were forced to practice in Lake Placid, New York and practice starts in dry gymnasiums. At Innsbruck, they only had four practice runs, far less than other teams who had been testing the run for weeks. Not only did the team win the gold in 1964, but it was the only Canadian Olympic gold that year and they managed to repeat their feat at the next year’s World Championships.
A member of the Canada Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, Emery is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and holds an MBA from Harvard University. He retired from the sport several years after the 1965 championships and returned to business endeavors. He eventually retired to London, England, although he often frequents Oslo, Norway.
Canada