Sunday, February 28, 2010

USA 1 win four-man bobsleigh gold at Winter Olympics


The Americans, who set two track records to lead overnight, continued their domination to win by 0.38 seconds from Andre Lange's Germany 1
Lange, who had won four-man gold at the two previous Olympics, was quickest on the final run to leapfrog Canada 1.
Britain's quarter recovered from their crash on the second run to improve from 21st at halfway to 17th overall.
The team of Jackson, brakeman Allyn Condon, Henry Nwume and Dan Money only came together at a pre-Games holding camp in Utah earlier in February.
But Jackson was pleased with the way his team had performed after such a short time together.
They responded well after Friday's crash with slides of 52.24 and 52.15 seconds in runs three and four respectively.
"We'veoved up a couple of places, we knew that we could," Jackson said.
US pilot Steve Holcomb
"Obviously the crash was a minor blemish and we knew that we could at least pick off the places that we have done.
"We've gelled from the off. We've been together for the last four seasons in an around each other so we know each other well and as a team it just clicked into place straight away from when we were in Park City just before we got to the Olympics."
And Jackson hopes the team will stay together and compete at the Sochi Games in 2016, although he appreciates that may depend on funding issues.
"We were hoping after the first run when we were in 11th, that we could have got into the top 10 and stayed there," he said.
"That would have been good for funding.
"We'll just see what happens. I'm looking to go to Sochi and hopefully these guys will be there with me too."
Lange, piloting Germany 1, produced an excellent drive on his final run to record a time of 51.36 seconds. He then watched as Canada 1 came down in 51.46 to miss out on silver by 0.01 seconds.
The 36-year-old, who also won the two-man bobsleigh gold, then confirmed that it was his last race
"I have won so many things, I've had another great Olympics," he said.
"I stood up here in 2006 when this track was being built and knew it would be a good place to retire and that time has come."
Holcomb, leading by 0.45 seconds going into the final run, maintained his advantage to finish in an overall time of 2:32.94.
"This will take a while for it to sink in," he said.
"You work so hard and when you finally get there it's like, 'Well, now what? I don't know what to do.'
"We've worked so hard and gone through so much in the last four years to end on a high note like this is huge. It's overwhelming."

No comments:

Post a Comment