Two slides on Friday allowed the Polish representatives – Linda Weiszewski and Klaudia Adamek – to think about attacking the position of advancing to the final of the doubles bobsleigh competition at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. After the second slide, our competitors were in 22nd place, 0.11 seconds behind the 20th place of the Chinese team. The 20 fastest twos will be allowed to take part in the fourth slide.
The Germans and Americans were undoubtedly the favorites – these two nations dominated the top five, and the team consisting of Laura Nolte and Levi Deborah was at the forefront of the competition before Saturday’s competition (1:53.93 after the second slide). Behind them were their compatriots Lisa Buckwitz and Neele Schuten (1:54.11) and the US representatives Kaillie Armbruster Humphries and Jasmine Jones (1:54.16).
There will be an interesting fight for medals. The Canadians made a mockery of it
It was the fastest two teams that started Saturday’s competition. Due to the prevailing weather conditions, the track was not as fast as on Friday, when the new Cortina Sliding Center record was set. After a smooth run, Nolte and Levi finally achieved a time of 2:51.19 and had to wait to see what their rivals would do.
Buckwitz and Schuten made up for some of the loss to their compatriots right from the start. Later, however, this loss grew more and more and ultimately these two were 0.35 seconds slower than the leaders. However, the Americans were motivated to prove that Friday’s time of 56.92 was not a coincidence. However, they did not record a successful attempt and neither did they pose a threat to Nolte and Levi.
Kim Kalicki and Talea Prepens made up for the loss to the top three. The third German pair was only 0.09 seconds behind the US competitors before the last slide, which heralded an interesting fight for the bronze medal.
A fatal mistake was made by the seventh-place Canadians, Melissa Lotholz and Kelsey Mitchell. In the lower part of the track, they were completely late in entering the bend and bounced off the edge. They lost a lot of time and gave several teams behind them a chance to advance. The opportunity was quickly taken advantage of by the Austrians Katrin Beierl and Christania Simone Williams, although they also lost a lot of speed in the final part of the slide.
The Swiss women Debora Annen and Salome Kora advanced two positions, taking seventh place, 0.08 seconds behind their compatriots Melanie Hasler and Nadja Pasternack. The Australians, Bree Walker and Kiara Reddingius, were also clearly losing pace. They also managed to overtake the Canadians, who could have kicked themselves after what they did in the third slide – they eventually fell to the ?. position.
Polish women will compete in the final!
A brilliant start was made by the US representatives – Elana Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brein, who achieved a sliding time of 57.60. This allowed them to advance to 6th place and rehabilitation for the completely unsuccessful second run on Friday.
We were slowly approaching the slide with the participation of Polish representatives. Hopes were raised by the Chinese women’s run in 58.50. However, the British team Adele Nicoll and Ashleigh Nelson recorded a very good time, which allowed them to advance to 16th place.
Weiszewski and Adamek had the 13th fastest time at the start, but they still had to cope on the track. The run looked much better than Friday’s and eventually the Poles took 18th place, which allowed them to advance to the final. Their time after three slides was 2:54.34. The last, fourth slide will start at 21:05.
See also: This is what Semirunnij did in the Olympic semi-finals. “We regret it very much”
