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OLYMPIC-BOBSLEDDERS Feb-21-2006 (870 words) With graphic posted Jan. 6 and photos today. xxxi
Faith in God bonds two U.S. bobsled teammates
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
TURIN, Italy (CNS) -- What has eight legs, is more than 12 feet long, weighs more than 1,300 pounds and reaches speeds of 80 miles per hour as it careens down a twisting tunnel of ice?
It's the four-man bobsled at the Olympic Winter Games.
This year in Turin, the U.S. team's fiberglass beasts will include a Catholic acolyte from Nebraska and a Christian chaplain from Ohio.
Curt Tomasevicz, of Shelby, Neb., and Brock Kreitzburg, of Akron, Ohio, told Catholic News Service that sharing a strong faith in God has acted as a special bond between them as they prepare to go for medals with their Olympic teammates Feb. 24-25.
"There aren't too many Christians, especially, who are authentically living out (their faith), in the world of athletics," Kreitzburg said Feb. 13 over a cup of green tea in a Turin cafe. "I think it's because athletics is very self-centered, a self-motivated world" where little emphasis is placed on the work of the divine, he said.
Both he and Tomasevicz said a person who comes from a religious background has to be prepared to nurture his or her faith alone when entering a world of elite sports, even the Olympics.
Tomasevicz said, "It's difficult to get to Mass on Sundays because of training, and we're away from our families, so from that aspect you could easily lose touch with your religious upbringing."
The native of Shelby, Neb., and member of Sacred Heart Parish there said he always carries with him the Magnificat, a booklet of Mass readings and prayers, since he rarely gets to church when he's "on tour" preparing for the Olympics.
As he sipped his Italian hot chocolate, Tomasevicz said holding fast to their faith in God "is a connection Brock and I have that a lot of the other guys on the team don't quite understand or follow."
Kreitzburg earned a master's degree in divinity from the nondenominational Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. Though he is not an ordained minister, he was working as a chaplain in a retirement community in Akron, Ohio, before he decided to turn his football talents to the bobsledding world.
To pursue his Olympic dream, the Ohio native "gave up a career, money and any chance of having any type of relationship with a woman because it's very difficult traveling so much," he said.
Tomasevicz, too, said the amount of time he had to dedicate to bobsledding "didn't go over very well" with his now-former girlfriend. "I was gone 90 percent of the time during the year," he added.
He said his Catholic faith has been key in helping him deal with the sense of loss and loneliness that seems endemic in the life of an Olympian. While friends left college to pursue careers or get married, "I went off to bobsled, and I felt alone, I guess," he said.
While training, Tomasevicz, who rode on the USA 2 Olympic bobsled team, sensed "a lot of things were gone in my life, but there was still religion and God, so it showed me that he would always be there for me."
Krietzburg, who rode on the USA 1 bobsled team, said he "didn't grow up a Christian," but said when his father was dying of cancer he "started a dialogue with God, asking him to heal my dad."
Krietzburg, who was 13 when his father died, kept up the conversation with God. He said when he went to Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, "I realized I needed some sort of religion in my life because I felt something was missing."
He said he became a Christian while attending college at the University of Toledo, Ohio, where he played football and ran track.
Tomasevicz, on the other hand, said he was raised "a pretty hardcore Catholic" who really enjoyed the time spent with his family attending Mass. He also played football at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
He said he became an acolyte because he wanted to become more involved in his Catholic faith. He has also maintained a close friendship with a former Shelby parish priest, Father John Copenhaver, who helped him decide to postpone his post-graduate studies to try out for the Olympics.
"We were just hanging out watching movies and I was asking him 'Should I do this? I'd be giving up a lot,'" said Tomasevicz.
The athlete said that after they talked for hours, Father Copenhaver said, "go do it, so I did." Father Copenhaver was expected to be one of a large crowd of fans rooting for one of Nebraska's few winter Olympic athletes.
Tomasevicz said that after the Olympics, he plans to finish his thesis and the two courses left for a master's degree in electrical engineering. Both he and Kreitzburg said they were undecided about whether another Olympics would be in their futures.
Despite the sacrifices made to get on the U.S. bobsled team, being at the Olympics "is pretty thrilling," Tomasevicz said.
He said faith "has given me the confidence to just go ahead and do it, to trust that the outcome is not good or bad, but just meant to be that way."
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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