Music: {allcanada} Humphries, O'Brien come 3rd at bobsled World Cup

Saturday, December 20, 2014

{allcanada} Humphries, O'Brien come 3rd at bobsled World Cup

Christmas - Michael Bublé / Elf (2003) / Scrooged

CALGARY — Elana Meyers Taylor is piling up the World Cup points in women's bobsled early this season.

The American pilot and brakeman Cherrelle Garrett won their second race in as many weeks Saturday. Meyers Taylor, the Olympic silver medallist, and Garrett also won the season-opener in Lake Placid, N.Y., last week.

Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries and new brakeman Kate O'Brien of Calgary were third on their home track at Canada Olympic Park. Anja Schneiderheinze and Franziska Bertels of Germany were second.

Both Meyers Taylor and Humphries had less than an hour after women's bobsled to prepare for their World Cup debuts as four-man pilots of male crews later in the day.

Meyers Taylor says that hasn't distracted her from women's bobsled events.

"My coaches are saying it helps my driving," Meyers Taylor said. "Switching disciplines, being able to do this, has been an incredible opportunity, an incredible experience.

"I'm just really excited about it. That fuel, that excitement is carrying over to my two-man competition as well."

Humphries was fifth in Lake Placid with Melissa Hotholz of Barrhead, Alta. The pilot says switching disciplines isn't easy.

"Made a few mistakes," Humphries said. "Definitely trying to decipher between two-man and four-man is a challenge. It's going to take some time for me to understand just how much less I have to steer and how finicky it is.

"A few little tiny things, just slight timing that's off, but on this track you know that's enough. Elana is killing us at the start, so we've got some work to do there."

Meyers Taylor and Barrett were just three-hundredths of a second off the track's start record of 5.45 seconds held by Humphries and Heather Moyse.

The Americans posted a two-run time of one minute 51.76 seconds to finish ahead of the Germans (1:52.21). Sitting fourth after the first heat, the Canadians were quicker off the start in their second run and finished in 1:52.65.

The Canadian and U.S. teams are familiar with North American tracks after years of racing the developmental circuits. Meyers Taylors says it's important to accumulate World Cup points at home before the circuit heads to Europe in January.

"It definitely is a huge opportunity," the Californian said. "We're dealing with all World Cup rookie brakemen. Even though Cherrelle's been sliding in the sport, she's new to World Cup.

"We needed to get some points here in order to help our rookies adjust over to Europe. It's a long second half and for us North Americans that's a long time to be away from everybody. We wanted to frontload some points and see how it goes next half."

Alysia Rissling of Calgary and Julie Corrente of Chatham, Ont., crashed during the second run of their World Cup debut but were unhurt.

Jack Frost (1998) / Wintersong - Sarah McLachlan / The Polar Express