Ivo DE BRUIN

2021 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS CRASH
With brakeman Janko Franjic, he had a wild crash during the third run of the two-man event in 2021 in Altenberg exiting the dangerous Kreisl bend, and slid down the course upside down at full speed (they were unharmed).

PINCHING PENNIES
After losing the sponsorship of the NOC*NSF, the Netherlands' top sporting body, after the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, de Bruin was forced to juggle his team's financial planning in addition to their training. The team often stayed in a single hotel room that left more than one man sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. They received a crucial sponsorship from Holland Casino in mid-2017, which meant a bed for everyone, as well as a new sled. "From amateurs we have become a professional team again in recent months.” (helden.media, 14 Nov 2017; trouw.nl, 20 Oct 2017)

TRAVELLING
He and his wife Christine love to travel, away from the bobsleigh circuit. He proposed to her in Egypt in February 2014. She says, "I didn’t believe him, being the joker that he is. I said no for about a week until I realized that he was being serious." (locallaundry.ca, Nov 2011)

OLYMPIC LIFELINE
De Bruin's sled needed a top-eight World Cup finish in 2021/22 to satisfy the strict requirements set by the NOC*NSF for a quota spot at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Failing to do so, de Bruin believed he had a five per cent chance that the organisation would grant him an exemption. The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation intervened on his behalf, citing the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic on training and the fact that his best crew member, Janko Franjic, missed nearly the entire season with an injury.

Two days after the final race of the season, he got the call he was waiting for. "I broke. It took three, four minutes before I could say thank you. I was so emotional. This means so much to me... Its been a lot of hard work for 12 years. We were out every winter and put everything else aside. I had to miss birthdays, weddings, and funerals because I was away." (nu.nl, 19 Jan 2022; nu.nl, 16 Jan 2022)

© Data by Sports Data Warehouse

In six World Championships appearances between 2012 and 2021, his best finish is 16th in 2019 (two-man).

Competed at three Junior World Championships (2009, 2011, 2012), winning two-man bronze in 2012 (with Bror van der Zijde).

Finished in the top-15 at eight World Cup races in 2020/21 across both the two- and four-man events.