Vic Emery

Victor Emery (born June 28, 1933) is a Canadian businessman, gold medallist at the Olympic Winter Games and a world champion bobsledder. He was born in Montreal, Quebec.

Involved in athletics from a young age, Emery was a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and the Harvard Business School where he earned an MBA. After attending the bobsleigh competition at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Emery decided to give the sport a try with the idea of achieving enough competency by 1959 to qualify for the World Bobsled Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. He and his brother John Emery helped establish the Laurentian Bobsleigh Association and recruited Peter Kirby and Doug Anakin to make up a four-man bobsled team. Although Canada had no bobsled training facilities or practise track and no organizations to support or train them, Emery's team performed dry-land runs in a Montreal gymnasium and practised a few times at the Lake Placid, New York bobsleigh run built for the 1932 Winter Olympics.

Emery was the driver of the four-man bobsleigh team representing Canada at the 1959 world championships where their performance was less than stellar. Given guidance and coaching by the great Italian champion Eugenio Monti, Emery and his teammates set a goal of being the first Canadian bobsleigh team to compete in the Winter Olympic Games.

At the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, the team realized their dream but without corporate or government sponsorship had to pay their own way. Given little chance against the superior Italian team and the heavily favored Austrians, in their first run, the Canadian team astonished competitors and spectators alike by setting a track record. However, their sled's axle was damaged in the process and they would have been disqualified had not rival Eugenio Monti and his mechanics come to the rescue. Their sled was repaired and after the third of four runs the Canadian team was already far ahead of their competition and they went on to easily win the Gold medal. Emery and teammate Peter Kirby paired in the two-man bobsled competition and earned a fourth place finish.

The following year, Emery's crew of Michael Young, Gerald Presley and Peter Kirby won the 1965 world bobsled championship in St. Moritz. Emery and Young finished third in the two-man event. Emery gave up the sport a few years later and returned to the business world in Canada. Today, he is retired and living in London, England.

Emery was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1964 and the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1971.

References

* [http://sports123.com/bob/mo-4.html Bobsleigh four-man Olympic medalists for 1924, 1932-56, and since 1964]
* [http://sports123.com/bob/mw-2.html Bobsleigh two-man world championship medalists since 1931]
* [http://sports123.com/bob/mw-4.html Bobsleigh four-man world championship medalists since 1930]