Park City (RWH): 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.
(Image: Viesturs Lacis)
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 Games 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.
Following the first of the season’s eight races in the BMW IBSF World Cup 2017/2018, the overall standings for the Olympic winter are as follows: Nico Walther (GER, 225 points) leads Justin Kripps (CAN, 210) and Chris Spring (CAN, 200).
(Source: IBSF)