4-man team match 2-man bronze
Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Arran Gulliver and Leon Greenwood made it two World Cup bobsleigh medals in as many days when they won 4-man bobsleigh bronze in Lillehammer on Sunday afternoon.
The GB1 crew backed up the brilliant bronze won by Hall and Lawrence in yesterday’s 2-man competition with a fifth successive 4-man podium place of the season.
Hall and co clocked a two-run time of 1 minute 40.05 seconds off 5.03 and 5.00 starts as they tied with Michael Vogt for the final medal having sat 0.04 seconds shy of the Swiss team at the halfway mark.
Germany’s Johannes Lochner and Francesco Friedrich took gold and silver respectively, swapping medal positions from the 2-man race at the same track 24 hours ago.
Today’s bronze (which was also a medal of the same colour in the European Championships) takes GB’s total 2-man and 4-man medal tally to seven with one round of races remaining, with the 4-man crew accounting for gold in St Moritz and Winterberg; silver in Igls and bronze here in Norway and back in Moritz.
They stay second in the Overall World Cup rankings ahead of the circuit finale in Lillehammer next Sunday. Hall and co are on 1244 points, 61 behind Friedrich’s 1,305, with Lochner third on 1,221. There are 225 points available for gold, 210 for silver and 200 for bronze, with the remaining places separated by eight points as you move down the order.
The GB2 crew of Adam Baird, Jens Hullah, Luka Williams and Olly Butterworth finished 18th after clocking 1 minute 41.64 seconds over their two runs.
Hullah, who was making his first World Cup appearance of the season, 22-year-old Williams and former rugby league player Butterworth were racing together for the first time after injury ruled out Austin Milward and Alex Cartagena stepped up to the role of reserve athlete for GB1 in the absence of Greg Cackett.
They recorded start times of 5.09 seconds (12th fastest) and 5.08 (13th) and finished with downtimes of 50.83 and 50.81.
In the women’s bobsleigh, Adelé Nicoll and Kya Placide matched their best result of the season as they finished 13th in a time of 1 minute 45.91 seconds.
Back-to-back British shot put champion Nicoll and her 20-year-old brakewoman clocked 52.97 seconds in Run 1 and 52.94 in Run 2 off 5.62 and then 5.61 starts in their third race together this term.
They equalled their effort from the season opener in Altenberg and the most recent race in Innsbruck in mid January as Nicoll continued her comeback from a foot injury that hampered her progress earlier in the season.
With five of the sleds who finished above them coming from either Canada or America, the British pair placed eighth in the European Championships - one position better than Nicoll finished in yesterday’s European monobob race and a single spot lower than they placed in Sigulda in last year’s continental competition.
Today’s event, which featured 22 sleds, was the first 2-woman race since January 19th after the following week’s scheduled competition in St Moritz was cancelled due to the warm weather.
Germany took a clean sweep of the medals, with Olympic Champion Laura Nolte winning gold, Kim Kalicki silver and Lisa Buckwitz bronze.
