Sandis Prūsis (born 24 October 1965, in

Ventspils Ventspils () is a state city in northwestern Latvia in the historical Courland region of Latvia, and is the sixth largest city in the country. At the beginning of 2020, Ventspils had a population of 33,906. It is situated on the Venta River and ...

) is a

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

bobsleigh Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobslei ...

coach and former bobsledder. Starting his career in the 1980s, he competed professionally from 1990 to 2003. Competing in three Winter Olympics, he earned his best finish in the two-man event at Nagano in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

, he got fifth place. Prūsis's best Bobsleigh World Cup finish was second two times, all in the four-man event (2000-1, 2002-3).

Professional career

Sandis Prūsis started to compete in the 1980s. In his first Winter Olympic Games in 1992 he was a originally a reservist, but took part in the games due to

Jānis Ķipurs Jānis Ķipurs (sometimes shown as Yanis Kipurs or Janis Kipurs, born 3 January 1958 in Kurmene, Kurmene parish) is a Latvian bobsledder who competed for the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, he wo ...

' injury, delivering a surprise by managing to overtake the team of his compatriot Zintis Ekmanis. In 1998 he was 5th in two-man competition and 6th in four-man competition in the Winter Olympic Games at Nagano. In 1998 he came 3rd in the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

in two-man competition and combined competition. In the World Cups of 2000 and in 2003 Sandis Prūsis won the silver medal in four-man competition in general classification. In 2001 he won silver in four-man and bronze in combined competition at the World Cup. He became the four-man European champion in 2000 and 2003 (along with brakemen Mārcis Rullis, Jānis Silarājs, and Jānis Ozols). Prūsis has been a six-time-winner of the Latvian Bobsleigh Championship (1993, 1995, 1998 to 2001), champion of the

Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation of the Bal ...

(1990), gold medalist at the 2000 Winter Goodwill Games and carried the flag of Latvia at the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 (), were a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Nagano, Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, with some events ...

. Sandis Prūsis finished his career after the 2002/2003 World Cup season in bobsleigh. After ending his bobsleigh career, Prūsis coached the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

bobsleigh team from 2004 to 2006. From 2006 to 2025, he was the head coach for the Latvian team.

References

1992 bobsleigh two-man results
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080409025356/http://sports123.com/bob/mwc-4.html List of four-man bobsleigh World Cup champions since 1985br>List of two-man bobsleigh World Cup champions since 1985
1965 births Living people Bobsledders at the 1992 Winter Olympics Bobsledders at the 1994 Winter Olympics Bobsledders at the 1998 Winter Olympics Bobsledders at the 2002 Winter Olympics Soviet male bobsledders Latvian male bobsledders Sportspeople from Ventspils Olympic bobsledders for Latvia Latvian sportspeople in doping cases {{USSR-wintersport-bio-stub