Germany’s women slide to glory with one-two in bobsleigh | Winter Olympics

Germany prolonged their historic sliding dominance on the Beijing Video games with a one-two end within the girls’s bobsleigh to complete forward of the USA’ Elana Meyers Taylor, who took bronze to turn out to be probably the most embellished Black athlete in Winter Video games historical past in what could also be her ultimate race.

Once more there was disappointment for Nice Britain at these Video games after the GB pair of Mica McNeil and Montell Douglas completed a lowly seventeenth on the day when the lads’s curlers narrowly missed out on gold.

Laura Nolte held off defending Olympic champion and countrywoman Mariama Jamanka to seize a record-extending eighth sliding gold for the German workforce, who’ve swept all 4 luge and each skeleton occasions along with the two-man and two-woman bobsleigh on the glowing new course nestled within the tree-lined southern foot of Xiaohaituo Mountain.

Nolte, who turned the youngest ever feminine Olympic medallist in bobsleigh, paired with brakewoman Deborah Levi to clock a four-run mixed time of 4min 03.96 sec, a yawning 0.77sec quicker than Jamanka and Alexandra Burghardt. “I’ve by no means had this sense earlier than,” the 23-year-old Nolte stated. “It’s like we’re drunk, however we’re not. We’re simply drunk on happiness.”

The 37-year-old Meyers Taylor, who received the silver within the Olympic debut of monobob earlier this week earlier than hinting at attainable retirement, got here in 1.52sec off the tempo alongside Olympic debutante Sylvia Hoffman to earn a fifth profession medal and eclipse pace skater Shani Davis’s mark for many received by an athlete of color.

“There’s lots of people that got here earlier than me,” Meyers Taylor stated. “[2002 Olympic gold medalist] Vonetta Flowers is the rationale I’m right here, and Shani Davis and even [US speed skater] Erin Jackson. It’s simply been such a protracted legacy of Black athletes on the Winter Olympics and hopefully it simply continues.”

She added: “We would like everyone to return out whatever the color of your pores and skin. We would like winter sports activities to be for everyone, no matter race, no matter socio-economic class. I believe the extra range now we have, the stronger our sport might be. So hopefully that is simply the beginning of increasingly more folks popping out and attempting winter sports activities.”

Meyers Taylor will take a much more leisurely journey on Sunday nighttonight when she carries the US flag into the Hen’s Nest for the closing ceremony, an honour she was compelled to cede after testing optimistic for Covid-19 on arrival at Beijing, which saved her aside from her two-year-old son longer than ever earlier than.

Three-time Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries, who captured two-woman golds with Canada in 2010 and 2014 earlier than becoming a member of the US workforce in 2019, dropped from fifth on the midway stage to seventh total after profitable a 3rd profession gold in Monday’s monobob – the lone sliding occasion of 9 in Yanqing that hasn’t gone to the Germans.

“It hurts, I received’t lie,” stated Humphries, who was denied in her bid to affix Germany’s Kevin Kuske and Andre Lange as the one bobsleighers to win 4 Olympic golds however confirmed her intent to return again for the Milan Cortina Video games in 2026, when she can be 40. “I gave each ounce of every part I needed to the final two days and it wasn’t there. I’m happy with the work that we put in and what we put into it. It sucks and it’s infuriating to know that it wasn’t ok, however on the finish of the day, that’s racing.”

Earlier, Crew GB’s Brad Corridor piloted his four-man Nice Britain workforce to inside 0.31 seconds of a uncommon Olympic medal, bouncing again properly after crashing dramatically on the penultimate run of the two-man competitors on Tuesday. Corridor, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleeson and Taylor Lawrence have been in sixth place on the midway stage, 0.69sec behind the primary of two German groups atop the leaderboard with Canada’s Justin Kripps sitting third.

“Couple of errors on the primary run,” Corridor stated. “It wasn’t a nasty efficiency. Sitting in sixth place, I’m fairly content material with that.”

The 31-year-old from Cardiff, who has reached three podiums within the self-discipline on the World Cup circuit this season, has marshaled a largely self-funded marketing campaign to Beijing after UK Sport controversially defunded Crew GB’s bobsleighers three years in the past regardless of the nation’s finest ever girls’s bobsleigh lead to Pyeongchang.

Now Corridor’s four-man workforce enter at the moment’s ultimate runs within the hunt for Britain’s second four-man medal in 58 years – and first since John Jackson was awarded a retrospective bronze in 2014. “It’s a fairly tough factor for us to do, work out what’s finest,” Corridor stated.

“We’re only one workforce. Once you’re taking a look at competing in opposition to the Germans, there’s three of them. They’ve acquired 3 times the quantity of runs to check every part, discover one of the best ways down the observe and what finest gear works as nicely. We’re in opposition to it, we’ve acquired so much much less assets to drag upon, however we’ve simply gone with what we all know and [we’ll] see the place it seems.”