Kripps, Spring & Humphries steer Canada to the bobsleigh podium
Justin Kripps and Chris Spring steered Canada to a double IBSF World Cup podium, claiming silver and bronze respectively in four-man.
Kaillie Humphries and Melissa Lotholz also found the podium in Park City with a silver.
Here are the details from Team Canada’s eventful Friday night.
Four-man
While, Park City marked the second stop on the World Cup circuit, it was sliders’ first opportunity to race in the four-man event. Canada’s team of Spring, Jesse Lumsden, Alexander Kopacz and Oluseyi Smith opened with a bang, logging the fastest start time of 4.74 seconds, only 0.02s away from the track record.
Related: Kripps and Kopacz open with two-man silver
After the opening runs Canada’s top two sleds piloted by Spring and Nick Poloniato were ranked in fourth and fifth respectively. With the podium within sight, both teams needed clean lines in order to into a medal position.
Ranked 10th after the first run Justin Kripps, Lascelles Brown, Ben Coakwell and Neville Wright shocked the field with an epic comeback. Despite a big corner skid, Kripps was able to steer his sled to the fastest time of the competition (48.29s). That dominating run gave the Canadians a combined time of 1:36.83s, which was only bested by Germany’s top sled of Nico Walther, Kevin Kuske, Christian Poser and Eric Franke (1:36.80s).
Spring’s team was able to repeat their own strong opening run, for a combined time of 1:36.86s, giving Canada two spots on the four-man podium.
Women’s bobsleigh
Humphries and Melissa Lotholz were Canada’s top sled down the track in heat one, registering 50.42 seconds. At the end of opening runs only Americans Jamie Greubel Poser and Lauren Gibbs were able to surpass the Canadians, thanks to quick start on their home track. With 0.10s between the two teams Humphries and Lotholz had some ground to make up on their final run.
Related: Humphries and Lotholz win bobsleigh opener
On the final run the Canadians were not only able to improve their start time clocking 5.23s, but finished 0.02s faster than their opening run. With a combined time of one minute 40.82s, Humphries and Lotholz were in first with one American sled remaining. In a surprising finish Greubel Poser and Gibbs duplicated the Canadians’ start and run time, to hold onto their 0.10s lead.
Third place went to Team USA’s second sled of Elana Meyers Taylor and Lolo Jones, who finished 0.27s after their teammates.
The competition will continue on Saturday with women’s skeleton at 12:30pm ET. Fans can live stream the event on CBC Sports.
