It was business as usual in the men’s Olympic bobsled Sunday at Utah Olympic Park.
There was, as usual, glory for Germany’s Christoph Langen and, as usual, heartbreak for a United States sled.
Langen drove like a man possessed in pursuit of the one major bobsled gold medal that had eluded him. His track-record third run of 47.44 seconds tied him for first with Switzerland’s Christian Reich, and his 47.61-second fourth-round effort gave him the gold by .09 with a total time of 3:10.11.
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Nothing, it seemed, could stop Langen, not even the four mediocre starts he had to overcome with backup brakeman Markus Zimmermann, a replacement for the injured Marco Jakobs.
It seems as though nothing can stop the U.S. men’s bobsled team’s run of frustration, either, and the result is its 46-year medal drought lives on. Todd Hays, rallying from a fifth-place performance in Saturday’s opening two runs, moved past fourth-place Pierre Lueders of Canada with a 47.63 final run and total time of 3:10.65.
Hays believed that would be good enough to hold off third-place Martin Annen of Switzerland. But Annen, who led Hays by .09 entering the fourth run, produced a blazing 4.79 start–.03 faster than Hays’ takeoff–and beat him for the bronze by that same margin.
The near-miss was devastating for Hays but even tougher for brakeman Garrett Hines, a Chicago native who missed a bronze medal by .02 on Brian Shimer’s four-man sled in 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Hines was so distraught he declined to meet the media, leaving the explanations to Hays.
“It’s going to sting a long time,” Hays said. “I don’t know a worse place in sports than fourth place in the Olympics.”
Poor driving in the first run Saturday and a poor start in the second one was more than Hays, who was making his competitive Games debut, could overcome Sunday, despite producing a tie for the third-best run and a final run better than everyone else but Langen could muster.
“I got more mentally composed and drove like I could, but it was too late,” said Hays, who will compete in the four-man bobsled Friday and Saturday. “That’s bobsled. I just didn’t do the job [Saturday], and that’s all there is to it.”
Langen, 39, drove with a small lucky pig charm on his uniform zipper, but his driving skill makes luck unnecessary. He won the four-man gold medal in 1998 but got just the bronze in two-man, matching the third place he got in two-man in the 1992 Games in Albertville, France.
He fiercely coveted a two-man gold medal and showed it at the end of his gold-clinching fourth run, shaking his fists and then pounding them on the front of his sled in jubilation.
“That’s the only gold medal I’ve missed in my career–the two-man at the Olympics,” he said. “It was a super race.”
Reich had competed in three previous Games, the first two as a pusher, and had nothing better than a fourth place to show for it. He was in position to win a gold medal Sunday, but Langen’s brilliance was too much for him. Said Reich:
“I did not lose the gold medal. I won the silver medal.”
Shimer finished ninth in 3:11.93 with brakeman Darrin Steele. Chicago resident John-Andrew Kambanis and brakeman John Livaditis, a New Trier High School graduate now living in Denver, finished 31st among the 37 sleds while competing for Greece. The two, who have dual citizenship, had a time of 3:16.66.