How rugby built medal hopeful Joshua Tasche: 'We were put through an absolute meat grinder'

While his former team-mates were celebrating astonishing successes in the Rugby Europe Championship and at SVNS 2 in Nairobi, former Germany international winger Joshua Tasche was busy finding his bearings at the Olympic Village in Cortina, having finally realised his dream of becoming an Olympian.

The native of the quiet Berlin suburb of Nauen has made a remarkable transition from rugby to another sport that was once conceived by British sporting pioneers in the 19th century and is now aiming to crown his first Olympic Winter Games with a gold medal in the four-man bobsleigh event.

From the international rugby stage to the Olympics in only five years
This comes a mere five years after his last outing for the German Black Eagles on the European stage in a match against Switzerland. Ahead of his first Olympic heat this Saturday, Tasche credits his exceptional work ethic and determination to his formative years in top-level rugby.

Growing up hundreds of miles from the nearest bobsleigh track, even in his wildest dreams Tasche could not have imagined one day speeding down icy tracks at speeds of up to 150 km/h. But in his own words, his years in the oval-ball game and a 1990s Hollywood classic ultimately led him to where he is now.

Tasche was always considered a talented athlete and proved his sporting prowess at a young age as a sprinter, where he was among the fastest young hopefuls in Germany, competing at the national under-20 championships. His move to rugby was motivated by friends and the sport’s newly gained Olympic status ahead of the 2016 Games in Rio.

Meteoric rise in rugby
His path into the highest German domestic league, the Bundesliga, and his first selection for the national side soon followed. Blistering pace and fierce physicality paved his way to the highest levels of German rugby and to the European stage at the Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix, winning the competition in 2019 against the likes of Team GB and France, later debuting for the Schwarze Adler, Germany’s fifteen-a-side selection, as well.

Ultimately, it was Germany sevens coach Damian McGrath who put an expiry date on Tasche’s rugby career. He cut the talented winger from the elite squad, which led to Tasche losing his stipend. In retrospect, Tasche looks at how things unfolded with a smile. “Even at the end of my rugby career I wasn’t the most skilled rugby player, but early on I even struggled catching a ball.”

Ruthless work that paid off
His years in rugby taught him countless valuable lessons: at training camps in Fiji with the German sevens team, sprinting up the ruthless Sigatoka dunes made famous by the documentary Sevens from Heaven in the humid Pacific heat, or at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport, where he trained under Blitzboks legend Frankie Horne.

“I will never forget Frankie’s so called lekker sessions in Stellenbosch – they were absolute brutal,” remembers Tasche. Not one of these sessions ended without at least one participant vomiting from pure exhaustion, according to Tasche.

“Sheer determination and willpower is what made him stand out early on,” underlines Clemens von Grumbow, former captain and later coach of Germany’s sevens and fifteens sides, who has followed Tasche’s development as his former team-mate and coach.

Now the German medal hopeful fondly looks back on his time playing rugby. “My years in the sport have taught me work ethic and how to train really really hard, at times we were put through an absolute meat grinder, but it absolutely paid off.”

Jamaican family connection led Tasche to the bobsleigh track
His switch to winter sports was anything but straightforward. Born to a Jamaican father in eastern Germany, the 1993 classic Cool Runnings, which recounts the miraculous story of the 1988 Jamaican bobsleigh team debuting at the Calgary Winter Games, was one of his few connections to his father’s birth country.

Knowing full well that athletic sprinters with exceptional movement skills and the necessary work ethic were sought after in German bobsleigh, Tasche plotted his next move. Using his contacts through the German federal support system for Olympic hopefuls, he got in touch with the bobsleigh coaching team.

Having never even seen a bobsleigh up close, let alone raced down an icy track at breakneck speeds, the then 26-year-old quickly adapted to his new surroundings, despite loathing cold weather.

An Olympic medal beckons as Germany’s dominance in bobsleigh continues
Making one of Germany’s three World Cup bob teams was the biggest hurdle on the road to Tasche’s Olympic dream, given that Germany has dominated the sport for decades as the most successful bobsleigh nation at six of the last seven Olympic Winter Games.

After a short stint with highly decorated pilot Johannes Lochner, Tasche finally found his team in the summer of 2025 under the guidance of pilot Adam Ammour. Starting the Olympic season as the third and least favoured German team in the internal pecking order, Tasche’s addition has catapulted the team into gold contention.

Winning the most prestigious World Cup event in St Moritz in January and following up that triumph with another win at the final pre-Olympic race in Altenberg, Joshua Tasche and his pilot Adam Ammour go into the Olympic competition as the in-form team.

Joshua Tasche set to write sporting history
With four heats across Saturday and Sunday, one tiny mistake can ruin any medal hopes. Tasche explains that the Olympic track “doesn’t forgive any mistakes,” which in turn can create upsets and surprises.

His pilot Ammour wants to manage expectations but underlines that the gold medal is up for grabs. “We’re still the underdogs but we have proven that nobody should count us out!” Joshua Tasche has the chance to write sporting history.

Only four former rugby internationals have ever won Olympic medals. Tasche would be the first man to do so at the Winter Games.