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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 america’ Elana Meyers Taylor, who took bronze to develop into probably the most adorned Black athlete in Winter Video games historical past in what could also be her closing 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 crew, 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 grew to become 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 mentioned. “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 potential retirement, got here in 1.52sec off the tempo alongside Olympic debutante Sylvia Hoffman to earn a fifth profession medal and eclipse velocity 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 mentioned. “[2002 Olympic gold medalist] Vonetta Flowers is the explanation 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 wish all people to come back out whatever the color of your pores and skin. We wish winter sports activities to be for everyone, no matter race, no matter socio-economic class. I believe the extra variety we now have, the stronger our sport could be. So hopefully that is simply the beginning of an increasing number of individuals 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 Chicken’s Nest for the closing ceremony, an honour she was pressured to cede after testing optimistic for Covid-19 on arrival at Beijing, which stored her other than 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 crew in 2019, dropped from fifth on the midway stage to seventh general 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,” mentioned 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 come back again for the Milan Cortina Video games in 2026, when she can be 40. “I gave each ounce of all the things I needed to the final two days and it wasn’t there. I’m pleased 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 adequate, however on the finish of the day, that’s racing.”
Earlier, Group GB’s Brad Corridor piloted his four-man Nice Britain crew 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 had 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 mentioned. “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 Group GB’s bobsleighers three years in the past regardless of the nation’s greatest ever girls’s bobsleigh end in Pyeongchang.
Now Corridor’s four-man crew enter at present’s closing 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 troublesome factor for us to do, work out what’s greatest,” Corridor mentioned.
“We’re only one crew. Once you’re competing towards the Germans, there’s three of them. They’ve bought thrice the quantity of runs to check all the things, discover one of the best ways down the observe and what greatest gear works as nicely. We’re towards it, we’ve bought lots much less sources to tug upon, however we’ve simply gone with what we all know and [we’ll] see the place it seems.”
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