Bobsleigh, skeleton and monobob New Year’s weekend wrap up

The big date for qualification for the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, which starts 4 February, is 16 January 2022. By this day, all quota places for the sliding events of bobsleigh, skeleton and monobob will be decided as per the end-of-season rankings for the World Cup series for the two former disciplines and the World Series for the latter.

Athletes will not only be trying to qualify a quota place for their nation but also put themselves in the frame to be picked for the Olympic Games by their national federations. Just to add extra spice, there’s a competition on 16 January itself.

The weekend that straddled the old and new years saw events take place in Sigulda, Latvia, in all three disciplines, which Olympics.com rounds up here.

Women’s skeleton World Cup, Sigulda – 31 December 2021

Defending World Cup champion Janine Flock finished off 2021 with her first win of the season – her previous best was a third place in Altenberg, Germany on 3 December. In the sixth race of the season, the Austrian led after the first run and defended a 0.17 second lead over the Russian Federation’s Yulia Kanakina.

Current World Cup leader, Kimberley Bos from the Netherlands finished third, setting the fastest time in the second race. She has now finished on the podium in nine of the last 13 World Cup races and will be confident of improving on her eighth-place finish achieved at PyeongChang 2018.

Belgium’s Kim Meylemans missed the podium by just by 0.03 seconds coming in fourth.

Kanakina’s compatriot Elena Nikitina finished fifth ahead of the world champion Tina Hermann of Germany in sixth.

Great Britain’s Brogan Crowley and Laura Deas are showing signs of improvement ahead of Beijing with 12th and 14th places respectively. Previous bests this season were 16th for Crowley and 18th for PyeongChang 2018 bronze medalist Deas.

Kellie Delka from Puerto Rico celebrated her best result so far finishing 15th, a marked improvement on her previous high position of 20th place in Lake Placid in 2019.

Results
1 Janine Flock (Austria) 1:44.64
2 Yulia Kanakina (Russian Federation) 1:44.81
3 Kimberley Bos (Netherlands) 1:44.98
4 Kim Meylemans (Belgium) 1:45.01
...
10 Katie Uhlaender (USA) 1:45.80
12 Brogan Crowley (GBR) 1:45.88
14 Laura Deas (GBR) 1:46.09

Men’s skeleton World Cup, Sigulda – 31 December 2021

Eighteen years after winning his first World Cup, home-town athlete Tomass Dukurs won his second. The person who had won all the other World Cup golds for Latvia, a hefty 59 in all since Tomass last won in 2004, was his brother Martins Dukurs, the first person to congratulate him on his win. Dukurs the younger made a mistake at the beginning of the run, which resulted in his second place finish.

Third place went to Jung Seunggi of Republic of Korea who made his debut on the World Cup podium.

Junior World Champion Evgeniy Rukosuev from the Russian Federation finished fourth in his first race of the 2021/22 season, missing the podium by just 0.01 seconds.

World champion Christopher Grotheer of Germany finished down the order in eighth with another high-flyer this season, his compatriot, Axel Jungk who finished 12th.

Great Britain’s Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt finished in 10th and 17th, respectively.

Results
1 Tomass Dukurs (Latvia) 1:41.36
2 Martins Dukurs (Latvia) 1:41.42
3 Jung Seunggi (Republic of Korea) 1:41.73
4 Evgeniy Rukosuev (Russian Federation) 1:41.74
...
8 Christopher Grotheer (Germany) 1:42.13
10 Matt Weston (GBR) 1:42.23
12 Axel Jungk (Germany) 1:42.55
17 Marcus Wyatt (GBR) 1:42.94

Women’s monobob World Series, Sigluda – 1 January 2022

Christine de Bruin of Canada started the new year the way she finished the old, in first place in the women’s monobob event. Australia's Breeana Walker had the fastest start in both runs, including a track record 5.62 seconds, but she couldn’t convert this to the win, coming in second. Russian Federation slider Nadezhda Sergeeva managed her first podium of the Olympic season with third place.

The Olympic host, People’s Republic of China, will be happy to see the duo of Huai Mingming and Qing Ying, finishing fourth and fifth respectively, just a few hundredths of a second away from the podium as they near their home Games.

A number of previous winners and placers of the season did not compete at the sixth stop of the Women's Monobob World Series, including world champion Kaillie Humphries and teammate Elana Meyers Taylor (both USA), Germany's Laura Nolte and the previous overall leader Cynthia Appiah of Canada.

Results
1 Christine de Bruin (Canada) 1:48.12
2 Breeana Walker (Australia) 1:48.68
3 Nadezhda Sergeeva (Russian Federation) 1:48.70

2-man bobsleigh World Cup, Sigulda – 1 January 2022

The junior European champion of 2020, bobsleigh pilot Rostislav Gaitiukevich from the Russian Federation celebrated his first World Cup victory on New Year's Day 2022, with push athlete Mikhail Mordasov. In second place after the first run of two, the pair relegated the British two-man team of Brad Hall and Greg Cackett to second place.

“We wanted to be consistently challenging for medals this season and that’s exactly what we’re doing," said Hall after the race. “We feel like we can be in the mix every time we step on the start line and that’s great for our confidence ahead of the Olympics."

Third place went to the Austrians Benjamin Maier and Markus Sammer, the first podium finish in the 2-man bobsleigh of the 2021-22 season.

For the first time since December 2020, the 2-man bobsleigh World Cup winner was not the German legend Francesco Friedrich. After a year without defeats in 2021, the Olympic, world and defending World Cup champion, alongside push athlete Alexander Schueller, found himself in twelfth place after making uncharacteristic errors. The last time Friedrich was not on the 2-man bobsleigh podium was in Whistler, Canada, in November 2017, when he also finished twelfth.

Results
1 Rostislav Gaitiukevich / Mikhail Mordasov (Russian Federation) 1:39.23
2 Brad Hall / Greg Cackett (GB) 1:39.33
3 Benjamin Maier / Markus Sammer (Austria) 1:39.40

2-woman bobsleigh World Cup, Sigluda – 2 January 2022

Elana Meyers Taylor of the USA celebrated her first 2-woman World Cup bobsleigh victory of the 2021/22 Olympic winter season with Lake Kwaza as her push athlete.

In a track record time of 50.72 seconds, the Americans completed the first run in the same time as the Russian Federation duo of Nadezhda Sergeeva and Yulia Belomestnykh. However, while the U.S. athletes clocked the second-best time in the second run, the Russians crashed and finished 15th.

Mica McNeill, who finished eighth at PyeongChang 2018, celebrated her first-ever World Cup podium with push athlete Adele Nicoll, Great Britain’s first women's bobsleigh World Cup medal in 13 years.

In only her second-ever bobsleigh race, Nicoll proved McNeill correct in her assumption that the sheer power and speed shown by the Welsh shot put champion in an Instagram training video last year – prompting the Great Britain Olympic bobsleigh team to headhunt Nicoll – would prove invaluable.

Third place went to Canada's Christine de Bruin and Kristen Bujnowski while Huai Mingming/Wang Xuan and Ying Qing/Du Jiani of Olympic hosts, People’s Republic of China, celebrated their best ever 2-woman bobsleigh results, finishing fourth and sixth respectively.

Results
1 Elana Meyers Taylor / Lake Kwaza (USA) 1:41.88
2 Mica Mcneill / Adele Nicoll (GBR) 1:42.10
3 Christine De Bruin / Kristen Bujnowski (Canada) 1:41.12

2-man bobsleigh World Cup, Sigulda – 2 January 2022

You’ll never guess who was back on track after an unusually poor performance the previous day? Yes, that man Friedrich was back atop the podium but this time he was joined by push athlete Thorsten Margis.

Britain’s Hall replicated his second place of the previous day, this time with push athlete Nick Gleeson.

Local star Oskars Kibermanis, the overall World Cup runner-up of 2019 and 2020, celebrated the first podium of the Olympic season on his home track together with pusher Matiss Miknis.

Results
1 Francesco Friedrich / Thorsten Margis (Germany) 1:39.16
2 Brad Hall / Nick Gleeson (GBR) 1:39.22
3 Oskars Kibermanis / Matiss Miknis (Latvia) 1:39.71

The next skeleton and bobsleigh World Cups take place in Winterberg, Germany from 7-9 January 2022. The monobob World Series continues in Innsbruck, Austria on 6-7 January. The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 start 4 February 2022.