Adele’s Cool Runnings!

Welshpool elite athlete Adele Nicoll has revealed her most ambitious plans yet, and it will see her firmly in the driving seat steering her own destiny!

The 25-year-old has enjoyed an incredible year, being a back-up brake-woman for Team GB’s two-woman bobsleigh team at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February to competing in the Team Wales vest in August at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in shot put.

After such an exhausting year, she could have been forgiven for taking some time out, but Adele has launched herself feet first into a new project that she hopes will lead to the Milan 2026 Winter Olympics.

Not being content with her newly found brake-woman role, Adele has her sights now firmly fixed on becoming Team GB’s number one pilot for the season ahead, and it has got off to a flying start.

Despite only having four ‘push sessions’ since the Beijing Games as she focussed on her athletics, Adele still took part in the British bobsleigh trials recently in Bath and took it by storm.

“I knew it was going to be difficult because I had focussed my training towards throwing, and at the trials it was the first time that I was testing at the pilot handle, but I actually came as the GB’s No 1 pilot for the Europa Cup!” she said.

Britain’s long-standing top pilot Mica McNeill, who Adele won a World Cup series medal with in January, has decided to take a year out from the sport, so she believes the time is right to make her intentions known.

“I wanted to get my own pilot aspirations up and running as I want to be at the next Winter Olympics (Milan 2026) as a pilot,” she said.

But with funding for the sport tight, with only the men’s elite team fully funded by UK Sport, she has launched a bid to bring in additional financial support as a Europa season can cost in excess of £250,000.

Local businessman Mike Harris (pictured) has stepped in to provide her with initial support to get the project up and running, with her bobsleigh set to be branded in the football club owner’s TNS FC colours. That branding will be done at Mid Wales Sign & Print in Welshpool.

“Mike has been super supportive as, while I am getting some UK Sport funding as a development-classed athlete, it is essentially our job to try and get any external sponsors to give us some more budget to allow for a better season,” Adele explained.

Her throwing physique classes her as a ‘heavier’ pilot, and with the GB’s No1 brake-woman also in the same bracket, Adele is set to work with the lighter No 2, Maddison Illsley, a newcomer to the sport.

“I am super excited to work with her as she is a grafter like me and will work hard to improve in this sport.”

Adele will set off for a two-week training camp in Germany on October 23, and then a week in Norway before the first event of the Europa Cup season in Lillehammer on November 19. Races in Germany and Austria will take her up to Christmas, with her 2023 plans dependent on funding.

All these races will be in the monobob (one person), but depending on progress, the final race before Christmas could see Maddison join her in a two-woman race.

Adele’s energy and drive are impressive. Ever since her first international competition in her early teens, she has had her eyes fixed on bigger and better things.

But she has also remembered her Welshpool roots. Earlier this month she held her first Athletics Academy at the high school, sharing her expertise and experience with local children who enjoyed four days of fun and games.

“It was so good,” she beamed. “On that first day when I saw all the kids having fun it genuinely made it so emotional and heart-warming.

“The camp was so long in the planning with Covid making it difficult. But now was definitely the right time to do it and I received excellent feedback, so will be looking to do it more regularly as the kids loved it. I wanted them to have the best experience.”

She said that, schedules permitting, she would like to organise more during school holidays next year, and is putting young athletes through coaching courses to be ready to support.

But what about her athletics career?

“I will just manage it,” she said. “The gym work is overlapping and bobsleigh has helped me build more power to make me a better athlete all round.

“I will still do my drills whilst I am away. But at the minute it is just about trying to get as much financial support as I can to put a season together for the bobsleigh.”

The Milan 2026 Olympics may seem like a long way away, but for Adele every second counts as she once again set off to accomplish another dream in her extraordinary career.

NOTE: If you are a local business that can support Adele, she said that in return there are excellent opportunities including branding, social media posts, track hospitality and not to mention, hospitality days to have a go in a sled with her at the bobsleigh HQ in Bath!