Local hero Chris Spring has won the 2 man bobsleigh at the BMW IBSF World Cup in Whistler (CAN). The Canadian bobsleigh pilot and his brakeman Neville Wright won the third race of the Olympic season, which is also Spring’s second ever World Cup victory. The second Canadian pairing of Justin Kripps/Alexander Kopacz were a mere 0.02 seconds behind, finishing second in front of a home crowd. Oskars Melbardis/Daumants Dreiskens (LAT, 0.09 seconds back) finished third. There were jubilant scenes from the whole of the Canadian team at the finish line as Spring sealed his victory.
A bit of controversy in the race with Russian sleds carrying a message stating that “the truth is on our side…Sochi 2014” a direct reference to recent sanctions against Russian athletes as a result of the IOC Oswald Commision findings. The Russians had three sleds in the race with Kasjanov/Pushkarev finishing 4th, Stulnev/Malykh 9th and Adrianov/Mordasov in 15th.
GBR had two teams in action with Hall/Fearon finished equal 13th, equalling his best two man result on the World Cup with Tasker/Gleeson in 27th place after crashing at the end of their first run.
Fresh from last week’s 4-man medal in Park City, Hall and Fearon sat seventh at the halfway mark in Whistler after a run time of 52.09 seconds. They were slower in Run 2 but did enough to tie with reigning World Champion Francesco Friedrich in a race won by home favourite Chris Spring.
Bruce Tasker and World Cup debutant Nick Gleeson began promisingly with a 4.84 start but a crash derailed their challenge as they experienced the worst of the ice conditions having gone off 27th of 27 sleds.
After the third of eight 2 man bobsleigh races in the 2017/2018 BMW IBSF World Cup, the overall standings are now led by Justin Kripps (CAN, 612 points) ahead of Chris Spring (CAN, 577) and Nico Walther of Germany (545).
RacerReady will be reporting the results and views from all the world cup races.
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