England flanker Heather Fisher swaps sleds for scrums – Women’s Rugby Six Nations

from News.BBC.co.uk:

When Heather Fisher hears mention of next week’s Winter Olympics, the England flanker feels a tinge of nostalgia.

The 25-year-old goes on to imagine the picture-perfect snow, the camaraderie and the razzamatazz in Vancouver and wonders what might have been.

But then, with a shake of the head, the Worcester player returns to reality and remembers why she left the world of British bobsleighing to follow her dream of playing international rugby.

Fisher, a part-time sports lecturer, recalls last autumn’s historic victory over New Zealand, then looks ahead excitedly to the Six Nations and this summer’s Women’s World Cup being held in London, and admits nothing can compare to wearing the red rose of England.

“My heart wasn’t in bobsleigh as much as rugby,” admits Fisher, who made her England Test debut in last summer’s Nations Cup in Canada, a tournament which England successfully defended.

“It’s hard hearing how the girls are doing now, it brings it all home because I was with them, but you’ve got to go with how you feel and when you put your body on the line you have to love what you do.”

It takes a special kind of athlete to hurtle down ice at 60mph one year and then the next conquer the behemoths of women’s rugby, New Zealand.
Fisher was asked to trial for Britain’s women’s bobsleigh team back in 2006 during a time when she was “fed up” with rugby, a game she had been playing since she was 16.

The British Bobsleigh Association describes its sport as having “the power and co-ordination of an international rugby pack negotiating the high hurdles – in scrum formation – on ice” so maybe Fisher’s choice was not so surprising after all.

Nevertheless, Fisher took to it like a fish to water, finishing second in the British Bobsleigh Championship in 2008 and in the top six of the Junior World Championships.

But getting up at “stupid o’clock” and living away from home for eight months of the year, albeit in the picturesque surroundings of Lake Placid in New York and the British team’s winter sports centre of excellence in Austria, took its toll.

“Once you’re away, you just live a daily life in a bubble,” says Fisher, who had to rely on funding and sponsorship for income during her 18-month winter sport sabbatical.

Read the rest of the article here.

For a full schedule of all the 2010 Six Nations action, go here. For travel packages to England for the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup, go here.