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U.S. team is on track to win gold
By Joe Bauman
Deseret News Olympic specialist
UTAH OLYMPIC PARK — Todd Hays and crew are halfway to a gold medal.
If Hays (Del Rio, Texas) and the others of the USA-1 four-man bobsled can turn in a performance today like they did Friday, they will break the 46-year American "medal drought" in men's bobsled.
USA-1 bobsled came in first in both of the day's runs, hitting speeds of 86.1 miles per hour. The rest of the crew is Bill Schuffenhauer, Ogden; Randy Jones, Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Garrett Hines, Atlanta, Ga.
In two heats, the Hays sled racked up a total time of only 1:33.26.
Brian Shimer, Naples, Fla., and his crew are in fifth place, 0.39 of a second off Hays' pace.
Second belongs to Martin Annen, Switzerland, who took the bronze last Saturday in two-man bobsled. Annen and crew were 0.09 of a second behind USA-1. The German team headed by Andre Lange was in third.
Germany's formidable Christoph Langen, who won gold in the two-man bobsled earlier last Saturday, finished in an unaccustomed position — sixth place.
"Langen is hurt. He's in some trouble," said Richard Perelman, Salt Lake Organizing Committee press officer for the bobsled/luge/skeleton track.
The great German sledder apparently pulled a muscle on the bottom of his right foot. "He went to treatment. . . . I saw him take his right shoe off and his right sock off, and he was pouring snow into his sock and then putting his sock back on to ice the right foot," Perelman said.
Also sore, if not actually injured, were the crew of the U.S. Virgin Islands' sled, which rolled on the first run. The sled flew too high on a curve then came down on its side and finished the race nearly upside down, looking like a dead fish.
After it came to a stop, the crew members were momentarily wedged between the track's wall and the sled. But then track workers helped free driver Keith Sudziarski, and Paul Zar, Christian Brown and Michael Savitch. They walked their sled the rest of the way to the finish line, to the cheers of the crowd.
Quick work was needed to pull a member of Japan's sled the rest of the way in as it headed around the first curve from the start. Lee Johnston, pilot of the Great Britain-2 sled, said something hit his faceplate as he rounded Turn 11.
Hays and Schuffenhauer did not talk with reporters after their runs.
Shimer, who is in his fifth Olympics, said he was happy with his first run. "It's going to be hard to catch these guys," he said.
He and his team (Mike Kohn of Chantilly, Va.; Doug Sharp, Jeffersonville, Ind.; and Dan Steele, Sherrard, Ill.) need to improve their start, he said in a trackside interview. "Everything else seems to be working. The sled's great. The Bo-Dyn sleds are awesome, the runners are working well."
E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com
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February 23, 2002
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