Nico Walther of Germany has won the first 4 - man bobsleigh race of the Olympic season. At the BMW IBSF World Cup in Park City (USA), the World Championship bronze medallist and his brake team of Kevin Kuske, Christian Poser and Eric Franke finished ahead of the Canadian teams of Justin Kripps/Lascelles Brown/Ben Coakwell/Neville Wright (0.03 seconds back) and Chris Spring/Jesse Lumsden/Alexander Kopacz/Olusyi Smith (0.06 seconds back). Kripps managed to make it onto the podium after jumping up from tenth place following the first heat.
With a start time of 4.74 seconds on his first run, Chris Spring was just two hundredths of a second off the Olympic starting record, which was set over 15 years ago by Martin Annen and his Swiss 4 - man bobsleigh team at the Salt Lake City Winter Gam es in February 2002.
World Champion Johannes Lochner (GER, 0.07 seconds back), who was leading after the first run in Park City, ultimately missed out on the World Cup podium by just one hundredth of a second, ending up in fourth place.
This was Canada most successful 4-man world cup race ever with two sleds on the podium for the first time ever with Canada III finishing in sixth place, making history in the process.
Team Canada’s Chris Spring summed up the feeling “It was an absolutely awesome day for Canada,” said Spring. “These guys behind me are ridiculous. I knew in the first heat we’d have the fastest start. This is a team everyone knows they are going to have to beat and the guys proved that. I enjoyed the ride down with these guys tonight. I had some trouble with corners one, two and three. If I can clean that up we can win that race tomorrow”. (Saturday 18th)
GBR 1 quartet piloted by Lamin Deen with Toby Olubi, Ben Simons and Joel Fearon were in a podium position after the first run finished in eighth place (0.01 secs ahead of Germany III). GBR II piloted by Bradley Hall, with Judah Simpson, Sam Blanchett and Greg Cackett finished 23rd of the 24 strong field.
Race two of the 4-man series takes place later on Saturday.