Sprint & Ride

Willie Gault tried it. Edwin Moses and Herschel Walker, too.

But Vonetta Flowers, a seven-time NCAA track & field All-American at UAB, was the only one to find success.

Now come heptathlete Hyleas Fountain and hurdler Lolo Jones. Today the eyes of the track & field world will turn to Lake Placid, N.Y., of all places, for the USA Bobsled Push Championships thanks to a group of well-known track athletes who are making their first public effort at becoming Winter Olympians.

Fountain announced her intention to compete on Facebook earlier this week and then quickly removed the post, while Jones' participation was reported by Associated Press on Thursday.

Obviously this is not the first time that track athletes have tried to convert their track & field success into a winter opportunity. Flowers — a sprinter and jumper at UAB — is the one that claimed gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, but others already training in Lake Placid for the 2014 Sochi Games also come from a track & field background.

Former Ivy League multi-event champion Jamie Gruebel, who represented Cornell, will be battling with the big-name tracksters in today's event.

The Skeleton Push Championships were held last week and former Princeton long jumper Nathan Crumpton was third as he found that victories in the worlds of bobsled and skeleton are just as narrow as on the track.

"This was a nail biter of an event," Crumpton said. "We all knew the men's side would be close going into Push Championships, but I don't think anyone predicted that the top three finishers would be separated by three hundredths of a second."

"Overall I'm glad I was able to push a PR and end up on the podium, especially with limited offseason push practice, but it's also a bit of a disappointment to be so close to winning and coming up just short. John [Daly] definitely deserved to win though. He's an Olympian and four-time National Push Champion, and he proved that on the track with two consistently fast runs."

Sounds a lot like track.