Hall & Lawrence bag bronze in Lillehammer
Brad Hall and Taylor Lawrence won World Cup and European Championship 2-man bobsleigh bronze on Saturday as they marked one year to go until the Olympic Winter Games by preventing another German clean sweep of the medals in Lillehammer.
Hall and Lawrence became the first non-German team to win a 2-man medal in 2025 as they clocked a two-run time of 1 minute 41.63 seconds in the penultimate World Cup competition of the season.
The British pair hit the third fastest start time in Run 1 and the fourth quickest in Run 2 to beat the third German sled piloted by Adam Ammour by two hundredths of a second and add bronze to the silver they won in Sigulda before Christmas.
It means Hall and his 2-man team are on course to match their overall season bronze medal from two years ago - the first time Great Britain had celebrated an overall medal in the smaller discipline since the competition began more than four decades ago.
The result sees the leading British pair stay third in the overall standings with one race to go. It continues their record of never being outside the top six all season and moves them on to 1346 points, 218 ahead of Italy’s Patrick Baumgartner in fourth.
Germany’s reigning back-to-back Olympic Champion Francesco Friedrich leads the way on 1535, with compatriot Johannes Lochner on 1505 in second after they finished one-two today.
There is now just one 2-man race of the season remaining – back here in Norway a week from now.
“Whenever you split the Germans in the 2-man, it’s a good day,” said Lawrence, who has now won 22 World Cup and World Championship medals since making his top tier debut five years ago.
“Our push starts were much closer to where we think they should be so we’re super happy with that.
A medal in the European Champs and the World Cup is always a good thing and now we get ready to go again tomorrow in the 4-man where things are a little bit more in our favour. We want to at least replicate what we’ve done today and, ideally, go two better.
“The form that we’re showing in both the 2-man and the 4-man is on an upward trajectory and, hopefully, come the World Championships next month we’ll be back on the podium.”
Fellow Brits Adam Baird and Olly Butterworth finished equal 11th in a time of 1 minute 42.67 seconds as they came close to matching Baird’s World Cup PB of 10th set in Sigulda in December.
The GB2 crew sat 15th at halfway but jumped up four spots in the 25-strong field in the second run.
With non-European sleds removed for the European Championships, Baird and Butterworth placed ninth in the continental competition.
In the women’s monobob earlier in the day, Adele Nicoll continued her comeback from a foot injury with a ninth-place finish in the European Championships and 16th spot in the World Cup.
Nicoll clocked 1 minute 50.36 seconds off the 17th fastest starts in each heat as Australia’s Bree Walker and America’s Kaysha Love shared gold in a time of 1 minute 49.14. Germany’s World Champion Laura Nolte claimed bronze seven hundredths of a second back.
The back-to-back British shot putt champion goes again with Kya Placide in the 2-woman event at 8am GMT tomorrow.
Hall and Baird then pilot GB sleds in the 4-man competition at 12pm.
