Winter can develop the sameness of repetition. Soccer, Skiing, Basketball. Nothing seems to change. Then, championship
time arrives for Winter Sports, and we look, with regret at the sports we have
not followed as we really would have wanted to.
Yesterday there were Luge and Skiing World Cup competitions, today
there's bobsled, skeleton (which is Luge head first, I think) Rugby, Boxing,
and of course Basketball.
The Bobsled and Skeleton World Cup is actually a series of
competitions, which began on December 9th in Sigulda, Latvia, and wraps up in
Calgary on the 24th. The season is
beginning to wind down, after months of traveling Europe, the series returns to
North American soil when Lake Placid, New York, plays host to the tour’s
seventh stop, Friday and Saturday, February 15-16. More than 200 athletes from 24 nations are
expected to compete on the Mt. Van Hoevenberg course.
Germany’s Francesco Friedrich headlines the men’s bobsled
field. The 29 year-old has won 10 times in 12 races, with six, two-man
victories and four, four-man wins. He carries a 146-point lead in the chase for
the overall two-man World Cup crown and has a 73-point edge in the race for the
2019 overall four-man title. Latvia's Oskars Kibermanis is second in the two
man competition, with Germany's Nico Walther currently standing in third
place.
The four man competition, is also dominated by
Friedrich, with Germany's Johannes Lochner in second place, and Kibermanis in
third.
The race for the overall men’s skeleton World Cup title is
very close. Only 76 points separate the top three sleds and just a single point
separates first and second place. Olympic champion Yun Sunbin, of South Korea,
carries a mere single point lead over Russia’s Alexander Tretiakov and is 76
points ahead of Tretiakov’s teammate, Nikita Tregubov, who sits third. The schedule for the day:
9 am Men’s Skeleton Race – Heat #1
10:30 am Men’s Skeleton Race – Heat #2
11:45 am Awards: Men’s Skeleton
1:30 pm 4-man Bobsled Race – Heat #1
2:30 pm 4-man Bobsled Race – Heat #2
3:30 pm Awards: 4-man Bobsled
