EXCLUSIVE: From the Stawell Gift to Milan, Australia's Sarah Blizzard is living out her Cool Runnings dream

A hit fiction film that depicted the journey of four Jamaican sprinters who had an Olympic dream in 1988 introduced many across the world to the sport of bobsleigh.

The hardships, doubts and motivation behind athletes in the iconic movie Cool Runnings have often been compared to those that have followed a similar path in the four-man bobsleigh discipline.

And in Milan next month, one Australian racer is looking to live out her own Cool Runnings moment.

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From running on the famed grass track at the Stawell Gift to preparing to sprint on the ice in Milan, Sarah Blizzard is not afraid to conquer any challenge thrown her way.

Some may recognise her name from her performances at Australia's most famous and prestigious handicapped footrace, as she is the only athlete to have run in four consecutive finals. Her highest placing at the famed Stawell Gift was second.

Yet, had it not been for Bree Walker's quest to find a new teammate in the two-woman bobsleigh, Blizzard may have never stepped foot in the Winter Olympic village.

Walker's coach was on the hunt to find her a new teammate when he came into contact with Blizzard's trainer and asked if there was any talent who would be up for bobsleigh.

Blizzard was the first to come to mind, and her transition to the sport moved quickly.

It was never going to be easy for the Victorian local, given her frame was better suited to athletics, but it did not take long for her to get in top form for the new sport.

Seven seasons later, she now teams up with Desi Johnson in the two-woman bobsleigh events and also runs solo in the monobob across the World Cup circuit.

"Within two months of talking to Bree I was on a plane overseas," Blizzard recalled, speaking to Wide World of Sports.

"It all happened very quickly and I think it just came at the right time of my life. I think I needed something different.

"I didn't know if athletics was going well at the time, something was just not working. Then bobsleigh came along and I thought I'd give it a go. My family were like, 'Yeah, this is for you. That makes sense'."

Blizzard admitted she was inspired to watch Cool Runnings after joining the sport, even though the realities are quite different to what is depicted in the film.

Still, as "corny" as the movie is in the eyes of its athletes, it helped boost attention on the sport significantly, according to Blizzard.

Yet, like those in the film, she, too, has battled to prove doubters wrong in her career.

Blizzard has had to make decisions between working to fund her career or giving up shifts to ensure she is training at the same level as her rivals each season, but those decisions have not rattled her mentality to stay committed to the sport.

Instead, it was the post-Olympic blues that truly got to Blizzard.

It is common to hear of athletes suffering from the post-Olympic blues - a feeling of emptiness and loss of purpose following the highs of an athlete's elite sport - but it is not often that you hear those stories from the perspective of a non-competing athlete.

Blizzard candidly admitted that her experience at the 2022 Olympic Games was not as enjoyable as she had hoped, rather was an emotional rollercoaster for her first time.

The 29-year-old had been selected as an alternate for the women's bobsleigh team, meaning she would only be activated to compete if her teammates were to be injured.

"I'm very grateful for the experience (of the Olympic Games in Beijing), but at the time I didn't enjoy it at all, I was miserable," she said.

"I wanted to compete,
I was going there to compete and then I got selected as an alternate. It was heartbreaking. I didn't enjoy it.

"I knew at the time that it was going to pay off eventually, but it sucked. I cried a lot."

While there were many moments at those Olympics in Beijing that she has learned and grown from, the emotions of being on the sidelines have not disappeared from her mind.

Blizzard recalls the weeks that followed those Games were flooded by mixed emotions, some of which steered her towards calling time on the sport for good.

Not even a short trip away to a bobsleigh driving school after the Olympics could fully convince her to stay on as she "had simply lost all motivation" for the sport.

To add to her sadness, she admitted she was not enjoying the Melbourne landscape where she was living and eventually made the move up north to settle in Brisbane.

Soon after, a simple conversation with her mum led her to make her decision.

"I had a talk with mum and she was like, 'are you sure you want to keep doing this?'. And I said 'there's something still in me to keep going'.

"I definitely had those moments where I thought 'I'm done. I just don't know if I can handle this'. But I did push through it.

"I needed a change - and it gave me the fire to jump in the pilot seat."

Looking forward to Milan, Blizzard has adopted a different approach to ensure the nightmares and doubts of her last Olympic experience do not creep back in.

"The whole season, I've been trying to approach it like, 'let's enjoy it as much as possible'," she said.

"I'm still very much a development driver.
I'm so inexperienced compared to most of the people in the field, so I (want to) make sure I enjoy our competitions.

"If we don't qualify (for the Olympics), well, at least we've had a good season," she added.

"It's definitely going to be hard (to accept) and I don't know how i'll approach it, but I definitely want to continue on.

"I don't want to just give up because I know that there's so much there for me after this. I have so much more to give to this sport and get out this sport. Even if I have to take a year off or take some time off, I'm definitely going to continue."

Blizzard will team up with Johnson to compete in the two-woman event at the IBSF Bobsleigh World Cup in St Moritz, which will begin on Saturday.