{"id":2077,"date":"2011-12-13T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2012-01-04T02:40:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T07:40:57","slug":"a-conversation-with-canadian-olympic-bobsledder-lyndon-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/12\/a-conversation-with-canadian-olympic-bobsledder-lyndon-rush.html","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with Canadian Olympic bobsledder Lyndon Rush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are just over two years from now, but that doesn’t mean much to the serious group of athletes that already have the goal of reaching those Games in sight. Canadian bobsledder Lyndon Rush is one of those individuals.<\/p>\n

After a disappointing wreck took his two-man team out of contention at the 2010 Vancouver games, Rush bounced back with a surprising bronze medal performance in the four-man race. Now that the 2011-12 bobsledding season is in full swing, Rush is doing everything he can to get ready for another shot at Olympic glory.<\/p>\n

In this interview, Rush talks about how he got into the sport, the role that faith plays in his life and his ultimate goal as a competitor:<\/p>\n

Chad Bonham: How did you get involved in bobsledding?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lyndon Rush: I played football at the University of Saskatchewan. I had just finished my last year and that was the same year that Vancouver had won the bid for the Olympic Games. Canada started a program called \u201cOwn The Podium.\u201d They started raising money to put into the winter sports and they were doing a lot of recruiting at that time. So I went out and gave it a try and I really enjoyed it and it just went from there. But most of the guys come from track or football.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Tell me about your spiritual journey.<\/p>\n

Rush: I was raised in a Christian home. Both of my parents are believers. We did family devotions and went to church all the time. I became a Christian when I was six years old. I was a little guy. It\u2019s kind of cloudy, but I remember asking Jesus into my heart when my dad and I were golfing. I knew the story but he explained it to me that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. I remember sitting down on a park bench and saying the prayer. And then I guess growing up and getting older, I had a lot of good spiritual experiences at summer camp. I\u2019d get recharged out there. I remember a few times when I\u2019d get rededicated. But I don\u2019t remember my life as a non-believer. I never really had a time when I didn\u2019t believe. I screwed up lots but I can\u2019t imagine my life without Christ. I guess it\u2019s sort of boring, but that how it happened for me. I\u2019m so blessed.<\/p>\n

Bonham: I assume you\u2019ve seen a lot of athletes deal with depression when they\u2019ve failed or fallen short of their goals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Lyndon Rush (left) with brakeman Jesse Lumsden after placing fifth in the two-man bobsled World Cup race at Igls, Austria on December 3, 2011 (Photo by Charlie Booker)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rush: Yeah, but it goes both ways, even in the success stories. People rest on that and then they\u2019re miserable afterwards. You can\u2019t be fulfilled by success. The praise of man feels really good. We need to fight that. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re here for. We\u2019re here to please our maker. It\u2019s really easy to get caught up in hearing people tell you how awesome of a job you did and how proud they are of you. Because it feels really good when people tell you that. That\u2019s something I fight daily. We want to be praised by other people. I always try to remember that it\u2019s not my goal. People get depressed from success because the praise of man goes away and humans let you down. But if your life goal is to glorify your Maker, you\u2019ll never have that empty feeling.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What are your plans for 2014?<\/p>\n

Rush: I really thought I\u2019d be done after Vancouver. My wife and I discussed it a lot. I prayed about it a lot and I felt like God was telling me, \u201cListen to your wife.\u201d So I told myself I was going to retire unless Krista said she wanted me to keep going. My wife is the sweetest person on earth and she\u2019d never say, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want you to keep racing.\u201d But I had decided that if she told me, \u201cIf you want to keep racing, that\u2019s fine,\u201d I was going to retire. But she actually told me that she\u2019d been praying a lot and that she didn\u2019t think my work was done and that I needed to do another four-year cycle. So I\u2019m going to do this one more time.<\/p>\n

Lyndon Rush is one of 20 athletes who will be featured in a forthcoming book called Glory of the Games (Cross Training Publishing). Expected release is March 2012. Details coming soon!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends! The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are just over two years from now, but that doesn’t mean much to the serious group of athletes that already have the goal of reaching those Games in sight. Canadian bobsledder Lyndon Rush is one of those individuals. After a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[836,3,578,382,5],"tags":[300,838,837,840,839,299],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bobsledding","category-christian-athletes","category-olympic-athletes","category-qa","category-sports-features","tag-canada","tag-canadian-bobsledding","tag-lyndon-rush","tag-university-of-saskatchewan","tag-vancouver","tag-winter-olympics"],"yoast_head":"\nA conversation with Canadian Olympic bobsledder Lyndon Rush - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/12\/a-conversation-with-canadian-olympic-bobsledder-lyndon-rush.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A conversation with Canadian Olympic bobsledder Lyndon Rush - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Click “Like” to share this with your friends! 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Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2214,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}