Germans call for bobsleigh course to be closed after crashes
A top German bobsleigh official on Friday slammed the four-man bob event as a farce that should be called off, after six crashes in the opening two heats, following a dozen in training.
Steven Holcomb was on the way to gold in USA 1 after opening up a provisional 0.4 sec lead over Canada 1 and four-time German Olympic champion Andre Lange - who just avoided a mishap of his own on the dreaded "50-50" curve 13.
"It's becoming a farce - they ought to call the race off," said former Olympic champion and German women's team coach Wolfgang Hoppe.
As Lange struggled to find the form that won him the two-man gold last week, fellow German competitor Karl Angerer, pilot in Germany 3, said the course was just too dangerous.
"The course is very dangerous. It's just brutal what they are demanding of the pilots," he said.
There have been some 20 crashes overall on the track where Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in pre-Games training died in a crash during pre-competition training.
Two-man bronze medallist Alexsandr Zubkov was one of those to crash Friday while five teams pulled out ahead of the competition.
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Steven Holcomb was on the way to gold in USA 1 after opening up a provisional 0.4 sec lead over Canada 1 and four-time German Olympic champion Andre Lange - who just avoided a mishap of his own on the dreaded "50-50" curve 13.
"It's becoming a farce - they ought to call the race off," said former Olympic champion and German women's team coach Wolfgang Hoppe.
As Lange struggled to find the form that won him the two-man gold last week, fellow German competitor Karl Angerer, pilot in Germany 3, said the course was just too dangerous.
"The course is very dangerous. It's just brutal what they are demanding of the pilots," he said.
There have been some 20 crashes overall on the track where Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in pre-Games training died in a crash during pre-competition training.
Two-man bronze medallist Alexsandr Zubkov was one of those to crash Friday while five teams pulled out ahead of the competition.
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