Brad Hall and his crew won World Cup bobsleigh gold with an incredible performance in Altenberg on Sunday afternoon.
Hall, Arran Gulliver, Taylor Lawrence and Greg Cackett topped the podium for the second time in three races, having also won gold in Lake Placid in the final competition before Christmas.
The British quartet clocked 1 minute 48.22 seconds to beat the trio of German teams who took a clean sweep of the Olympic medals just 11 months ago and they did so on German ice and on a track where the home nation hadn’t been beaten in 4-man for 17 seasons.
They were the second quickest starters in the first heat as they led at the halfway mark and a stunning second run start that was the fastest of any team all day set the platform for them to take gold by nine hundredths of a second from Johannes Lochner. Christoph Hafer claimed bronze 0.26 seconds back from the Brits, with reigning double Olympic and World Champion Francesco Friedrich fully half a second adrift of Hall and co.
The win comes just 24 hours after Hall and Lawrence took silver in the 2-man race at the same venue and it means the team have now won eight medals across five World Cup competitions this season.
The result is the first time a British 4-man team have won two World Cup gold medals in a single season and it moves the 4-man crew to within 15 points of World No1 Friedrich in the overall standings with three World Cup races still to come.
It marks an outstanding weekend for British Bobsleigh and Skeleton after Matt Weston won men’s skeleton gold on Friday, with Laura Deas fifth and Marcus Wyatt sixth in their respective races.
The World Cup circuits stays in Altenberg for another week, with World Cup 6 also doubling as the European Championships, before attentions turn to the World Championships in St Moritz in late January and early February.
Greg Cackett following the 4-man World Cup gold medal in Altenberg:
"That was pretty special. We looked at coming to Altenberg for two weeks on a bogey track as good preparation for the World Championships and we’ve finished the first week with a gold medal. Doing well here at a track we’ve not done well at before bodes so well for the World Champs, which is at another track where we haven’t been as good as we’d like in the past. It’s exciting times.
"Seeing Brad and Taylor win silver on Saturday gave us even more confidence that we could win the 4-man. We’re setting such high standards now because we know what we’re capable of.
"Brad’s driving great and we know that, if we give him a decent push, he can get us on the podium anywhere in the world.
"We always want to be the fastest starters so to pull out a 5.06 in the second run was a great feeling for all of us. We know how important it is to be in a good place going into the first corner so to go two hundredths quicker than anyone else all day is just huge for us.
"The push has been consistently quick all season - we know we can produce when we need to. Arran’s only been sliding for a couple of months but he’s been amazing. To come in and help give us starts like that so early in his career is incredible.
"Big shout out to Graham Richardson, our coach, as well. He’s bought into how we work as a crew and has been a really calming presence throughout the season. He gets what we need to perform and his experience of the sport is second to none."
Rights free imagery courtesy of Viesturs Lacis.