BOBSLEIGH: The Aussie Bobsleigh Teams have shown they mean business on their Olympic campaign with some solid results in the opening round of the North American Cup in Whistler, Canada.
The green and gold men came out firing on Saturday with a fifth place finish in the 2-man event, with Lucas Mata and David Mari just 0.42 seconds off the leaders pace.
Unfortunatey Sunday proved to be a very different day on the track as Lucas Mata lined up with Hayden Smith and despite a solid start, the pair recorded a DNF.
"Race 2 we were sitting in 5th after run 1 but unfortunately crashed which gave us a DNF," said Smith who is looking to make his Olympic debut at the PyeongChang Games in February.
"A little disappointing but happy to walk away with some good points yesterday."
In a similiar fashion, the Aussie women burst out of the gate on Saturday with a huge 8th place finish in their first ever North American Cup event.
"Going into our first NAC we set some team goals that we wanted to hit. Not only did we manage to achieve them but to come away with an 8th place exceeded any of our expectations," said pilot Bree Walker who was joined by Ashleigh Werrner as the brakeman.
"There was fast ice conditions which always makes for an interesting night on the track. With multiple crashes occurring and the temperatures getting colder, both the male and female race was cancelled after the first heat!
"Ash and I managed to achieve a PB push start time and put together a pretty solid run to achieve a PB down time of 55.50 and a new top speed of 140km/h."
Sunday also proved tough on the girls as the pair of Mikalya Dunn and Bree Walker crashed on run 1.
"We crashed in our first run and Mik wasn’t feeling too great," said Walker, who despite a slow start remains positive for run 2.
"Ash had to jump in and made it down in our second heat with our second quickest down time."
After a solid opening round of the North American Cup, pilots Breanna Walker and Lucas Mata sit in 10th and 14th place on the rankings respectively.
The Australian crews will now head across the Canadian countryside to Calgary to compete at their next North American Cup in two weeks time.
Ashleigh Knight
olympics.com.au
