USA-1 sixth in Koenigssee four-man race
(USBSF PR)
KOENIGSSEE, Germany (Jan. 15, 2012)- Steven Holcomb (Park City, Utah) is dissatisfied with his sixth place finish in today’s four-man bobsled World Cup race. Holcomb and his USA-1 crew of Justin Olsen (San Antonio, Texas), Steve Langton (Melrose, Mass.) and Curt Tomasevicz (Shelby, Neb.) were within striking distance of the medals after a tightly contested first heat in Koenigssee, but the team was unable to move into the top three.
“We could have won if I had driven better,” Holcomb said. “I made a mistake in the second run that I’ve never made in my ten years of driving here. I honestly don’t know why and I’ll need to review video with our coaches to figure out what happened here.”
Team USA-1 pushed the BMW sled off the block in 4.86 and 4.84 seconds to give the sled momentum down the course. Holcomb’s driving was unable to match the rhythm of the challenging German track, and the crew was 0.21 seconds from the lead after a first run of 49.43 seconds. Despite an improved second run of 49.01 seconds, a driving error early on the course cost the team a top three finish. USA-1 clocked an aggregate time of 1:38.44 to finish 0.39 seconds off the pace in sixth.
“I’m ready to leave Germany,” Holcomb said. “We had three bad races in a row due to weather, but today was a bad race because of my driving. I have to put it behind me and try to move on. Each run is it’s own run and each race is it’s own race, so let’s hope for a fresh start next week.”
Russian Alexander Zubkov denied the host nation a win in the final World Cup competition in Germany this season to extend his domination. Zubkov and his teammates Philipp Egorov, Dmitry Trunenkov and Maxim Mokrousov threaded together the two fastest runs to edge out the Germans for gold by only 0.02 seconds with a combined time of 1:38.05.
Manuel Machata piloted his GER-2 team of Marko Huebenbecker, Andreas Bredeu and Christian Poser to the finish in 1:38.07 for the silver medal. Maximilian Arndt, Jan Speer, Alexander Roediger and Martin Putze teamed together as GER-1 to secure bronze with a two-run total of 1:38.19.
USA-2 teamed together in the National Guard sled for 13th place with a combined time of 1:39.93. Pilot John Napier (Lake Placid, N.Y.) and push crew Jesse Beckom (Chicago, Ill.), Adam Clark (Owenton, Ky.) and Chris Fogt (Alpine, Utah) clocked starts of 4.96 and 4.92 seconds for runs of 49.72 and 49.39 seconds, respectively.
