Bobsledding and Luge

▪ 2002

Introduction

Bobsledding.

      The top story of the 2000–01 bobsled season was the success of Jean Racine (and her brakeman, Jennifer Davidson) of the U.S. The duo combined to win six gold medals out of seven World Cup races, and for the second year in a row, Racine won the women's World Cup season title. Sandra Prokoff of Germany was second, and American Bonny Warner finished third. At the 2001 world championships, held in Calgary, Alta., in February, Racine and Davidson were edged out, however, losing by only 0.02 sec to Switzerland's Françoise Burdet and Katharina Sutter. Susi Erdmann and Tanja Hees of Germany placed third.

      In men's bobsled action, the World Cup tour had seven stops throughout Europe and the U.S. Germany's André Lange won both the four-man title and the combined season title. In four-man season standings, Sandis Prusis of Latvia took second, with Matthias Benesch of Germany finishing in third. Martin Annen of Switzerland won the two-man season title, followed by Germans René Spies and Lange. Christoph Langen of Germany dominated the men's world championship in St. Moritz, Switz., winning his fifth two-man world title (with brakeman Marco Jakobs) on January 28 and the four-man gold medal on February 4.

Skeleton.

      American Lincoln DeWitt and Alex Coomber of Great Britain won the men's and women's skeleton World Cup season titles, respectively, after they both won the World Cup finals at Utah Olympic Park. On the men's side, Kazuhiro Koshi of Japan placed second, and American Jim Shea, Jr., won the bronze. Steffi Hanzlik of Germany finished second in the women's World Cup standings, with Switzerland's Maya Pedersen in third. At the world championships in Calgary, Austria's Martin Rettl took the crown by 0.88 sec over Jeff Pain of Canada. DeWitt finished third. Pedersen rallied to gain the women's crown, while Coomber finished second and Tricia Stumpf of the U.S. placed third.

Luge.

      Throughout the 2000–01 luge season, Italy's Armin Zöggeler (see Biographies (Zoggeler, Armin )) controlled the men's singles action, winning his third men's singles luge world championship title and the overall World Cup title. Georg Hackl of Germany finished second in both the world championships and the World Cup standings. Austrian Marcus Prock finished third in the World Cup.

      In women's singles, Germany grabbed the top two positions in the overall World Cup standings with their duo of Silke Kraushaar and Sylke Otto. Otto also successfully defended her world championship title, while Kraushaar secured second place. Austria's Angelika Neuner finished third in the World Cup.

      André Florschütz and Torsten Wustlich of Germany captured the doubles title at the 35th luge world championships. Fellow Germans Steffen Skel and Steffen Wöller raced to a silver-medal finish. Markus Schiegl and Tobias Schiegl of Austria finished in the bronze-medal position—only 0.268 sec back. In the overall World Cup standings, Germany swept the top three positions, led by Skel and Wöller. Florschütz and Wustlich took second, while Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch finished third.

      In the team competition of the world championships, Germany I, comprising Hackl, Kraushaar, and the duo of Leitner and Resch, raced to the gold medal. Germany II, consisting of Karsten Albert, Otto, and the pair of Skel and Wöller, won the silver. The U.S., which came in third, captured its first non-Olympic team medal. The American team comprised Tony Benshoof, Becky Wilczak, and the duo of Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin.

Julie Urbansky

▪ 2001

Introduction

Bobsledding.

      The inaugural Winter Goodwill Games took place in February 2000 in Lake Placid, N.Y., and saw Sandis Prusis and Janis Ozols of Latvia take the two-man bobsled title with a combined time of 3 min 49.13 sec. Andre Lange and Lars Behrendt of Germany placed second, and Americans Brian Shimer and Pavle Jovanovic were third.

      American Jim Shea, Jr., the 1999 skeleton world champion, claimed the skeleton gold medal at the Games, followed by American Chris Soule and Kazuhiro Koshi of Japan. Alexandra Hamilton of Great Britain recorded the fastest time for the women (4 min 11.22 sec) to take the gold medal. Maya Bieri of Switzerland and Michelle Kelly of Canada won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

      The 1999–2000 World Cup season consisted of seven stops in Italy, France, Switzerland, and Germany. Drivers earned points in three categories: two-man, four-man, and combined standings. Switzerland took the top three spots in the two-man division, with Christian Reich and Urs Aeberhard leading the way with 224 points. Sleds piloted by Reto Götschi (209) and Marcel Rohner (205) followed. Switzerland also captured the four-man title with Rohner's team on top with 224 points. Prusis was second with 192 points, followed by Pierre Lueders of Canada with 181 points.

      Steffi Hanzlik and Andy Böhme of Germany won the women's and men's titles at the world skeleton championships, which were held in Igls, Austria, in February. Gregor Stähl of Switzerland finished second to Böhme, while Canada's Melissa Hollingsworth took the silver in the ladies' event.

      The world junior bobsled championships were also held in February, at Olympic Park in Calgary, Alta. Switzerland's Martin Annen and Beat Hefti recorded the fastest combined time (1 min 52.65 sec). Annen later piloted his four-man team to victory with a time of 1 min 50.16 sec.

Luge.

      International luge racing returned to Lake Placid at the Goodwill Games with a world-class field competing on a new $24 million track. Americans Mark Gimmette and Brian Martin captured the doubles gold medal, finishing five-thousandths of a second ahead of Germany's Steffen Skel and Steffen Woller. Italy's Armin Zoeggeler captured the men's singles gold medal. The women's crown went to Germany's Sylke Otto, with her teammate Silke Kraushaar taking second. Iluta Gaile of Latvia was third.

      In doubles competition Germany's Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch raced to titles in the 2000 European and world championships. Leitner and Resch also finished on top in the World Cup luge doubles. Ten points back in second place in the final World Cup standings were Skel and Woller.

      Women's singles continued to be dominated by Germans, who took the top three spots in the World Cup standings. Otto won four of the seven races and claimed the gold medal. Kraushaar, the 1998 Olympic gold medalist and defending World Cup overall winner, was second. Barbara Niedernhuber finished third.

      In men's singles Zoeggeler won the first five World Cup events to take the overall title. Jens Müller of Germany was four points back in second, followed by his teammate, the legendary three-time Olympic champion Georg Hackl.

Bill Bradley

▪ 2000

      In October 1999 International Olympic Committee officials meeting in Athens, Greece, announced the addition of women's bobsled and men's and women's skeleton to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Skeleton, a head-first innovation of luge, had been in the Winter Olympics twice in the past (1928 and 1948), but women had heretofore never competed in bobsledding at the Olympics. American Jim Shea, Jr., the 1999 skeleton world champion, looked forward to representing not only the U.S. in Salt Lake City but also his family; his father, Jim Shea, Sr., was a 1964 Olympian in nordic combined and his grandfather, Jack Shea, was a double medalist in speed skating at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. In 1998–99 World Cup competition, Shea finished the season ranked third.

      In women's bobsledding, brakeman Jen Davidson teamed with driver Jean Racine to win eight consecutive medals in World Cup competition during the season. The American duo earned five silver medals and three golds to finish the year ranked second in the women's competition behind the Switzerland I team of Françoise Burdet and Katarina Sutter. A gold medal in the final World Cup event in Königssee, Ger., on February 7 cemented Sutter's number one–driver ranking for the year.

      Germany's Christoph Langen closed the 1998–99 bobsledding season with a silver medal in four-man bobsled at the World Cup finals in St. Moritz, Switz., securing the number one–driver title. He also won the two-man bobsled driver title and combined driver title. At the world championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, in February, however, Langen, with brakeman Markus Zimmermann, lost to rival Günther Huber, with Ubaldo Ranzi, of Italy I by only 0.18 sec in the two-man event, and his team of Germany I slipped to sixth in the four-man, which was won by Bruno Mingeon's team, France I.

      Germany dominated the women's luge competition, with Silke Kraushaar, gold medalist at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, capturing the World Cup overall title and teammates Sylke Otto and Barbara Niedernhuber mopping up second and third, respectively. Top honours at the luge world championships went to Germany's Sonja Weidemann.

      In men's luge, Austrian Markus Prock won his eighth World Cup overall championship, and Armin Zoeggeler of Italy captured his second world championship. Germany's hopes for a luge sweep crashed with rider Georg Hackl, who led the tour with three World Cup wins but lost that lead to Prock with a crash at the world championships. Prock also led Austria to the team world title. In doubles, American sleds finished first, fourth, and fifth in the World Cup standings. It was the third consecutive year the U.S. team captured the overall World Cup ranking, with defending champions Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin remaining the world's top doubles team, despite a disappointing third-place finish behind Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch of Germany at the world championships.

Gavin Forbes Ehringer

▪ 1999

      After 34 years the U.S. finally captured its first Olympic medals in the luge competition, but the spotlight belonged to legendary German luger Georg Hackl. (See BIOGRAPHIES (Hackl, Georg ).) Reaching speeds in excess of 129 km/h (80 mph), Hackl won his third consecutive singles luge gold medal, becoming only the sixth athlete in Winter Olympics history to win an event three straight times. In so doing, Hackl once again foiled the gold medal aspirations of Austria's Markus Prock, the previous world champion. Hackl's time of 3:18.436 was more than half a second better than that of silver medalist Armin Zoeggeler of Italy. Prock finished a disappointing fourth and thereby marked the fourth Olympics in which Hackl had bested the eight-time world champ. American Wendel Suckow, the 1993 world champion, finished sixth. In doubles the German tandem of Jan Behrendt and Stefan Krause won the gold medal by 0.22 sec, the closest margin of victory in Olympic history. The Germans edged out Americans Gordy Sheer and Chris Thorpe, the 1997 World Cup champs, who took silver. Meanwhile, the U.S.'s reigning World Cup titlists, Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin, won the bronze.

      In the women's luge Germany placed three competitors among the top four, winning gold and silver. Silke Kraushaar edged teammate Barbara Niedernhuber by 0.002 sec, the closest margin in Olympic history, whereas Susi Erdmann, one of the pre-event favourites, finished a disappointing fourth.

      In terms of close races, the bobsledders managed to outdo the lugers by producing ties for medals in the two-man and four-man events. In the two-man event, the Italian team of Guenther Huber and Antonio Tartaglia led Pierre Lueders and David MacEachern of Canada by 0.03 sec heading into the fourth and decisive run. After the Italians produced a run of 54.27 sec, the Canadians turned the tables with a run of 54.24 sec, so that both teams finished with identical times of 3:37.24. This represented the first time Olympic bobsledding had produced cochampions.

      In the four-man competition, the U.K. and France tied for the bronze, and Germany 2 blew away the competition for gold. German driver Christoph Langen, who also won bronze in the two-man, steered his sled to a 0.60-sec win over Swiss driver Marcel Rohner. Langen became the first German from former West Germany to win gold. The past four German winners had been from former East Germany.

      French driver Bruno Mingeon moved up from sixth to third with a great final run to tie Britain's Sean Olsson for the bronze medal and the second tie in as many competitions. American driver Brian Shimer, a veteran of three previous Olympics, had toiled for more than 10 years in an attempt to end the U.S.'s 42-year medal drought in the bobsled competition, but his sled finished fifth in the four-man, just 0.02 sec out of medal contention. Shimer and brakeman Garrett Hines finished a disappointing 10th in the two-man event.

GREG GUSS

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