Steven Holcomb — a three-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion — was found dead in his room at the Olympic Training Center on Saturday in Lake Placid, New York. He was 37.
The U.S. Olympics committee released a statement on the news:
“The entire Olympic family is shocked and saddened by the incredibly tragic loss today of Steven Holcomb,” said Scott Blackmun, United States Olympic Committee CEO. “Steve was a tremendous athlete and even better person, and his perseverance and achievements were an inspiration to us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with Steve’s family and the entire bobsledding community.”
“It would be easy to focus on the loss in terms of his Olympic medals and enormous athletic contributions to the organization, but USA Bobsled & Skeleton is a family and right now we are trying to come to grips with the loss of our teammate, our brother and our friend,” said USA Bobsled & Skeleton CEO Darrin Steele.
Holcomb participated in three Winter Olympic Games for the United States, and he piloted a four-man bobsled team — known as the “Night Train” — to a gold medal at Vancouver in 2010. It was the United States’ first gold medal in the event in 62 years.
https://youtu.be/kvzcbweQi-Y
That gold medal came after Holcomb dealt with severe vision issues and battled depression, as the Associated Press explains:
But there was also a troubled side, including battles with depression and alcohol, plus a failed hotel-room suicide attempt involving sleeping pills in 2007 that he wrote about in his autobiography, “But Now I See: My Journey from Blindness to Olympic Gold.”
“After going through all that and still being here, I realized what my purpose was,” Holcomb told the AP in a 2014 interview.
The depression, he believed, largely stemmed from his fight with a disease called keratoconus. Holcomb’s vision degenerated to the point where he was convinced that his bobsled career was ending, and his mood quickly started going dark as well.
His eyesight was saved in a surgery that turned his 20-500 vision into something close to perfect, and his sliding career simply took off from there.
The cause of the death hasn’t been announced, but it’s believed Holcomb died in his sleep, and there were no indications of foul play.
