LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Steven Holcomb took “The Night Train” to the top of the podium at the bobsled world championships, lifting the weight of a 50-year drought from the U.S. men’s team.
Holcomb was the class of the field on all four runs of the four-man competition at Mount Van Hoevenberg and piloted the USA-1 sled painted flat black to the gold medal on Sunday.
It was the first triumph for the United States in four-man at world championships since Arthur Tyler won at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1959.
“I can’t believe, finally, after 50 years we got it done,” Holcomb said. “We were definitely the team to beat today. It all came together.”
It was another breakthrough day for the team. Seven years ago, Todd Hays and Brian Shimer won medals in four-man at the Salt Lake City Games to break a 46-year Olympic medal drought.
Sunday’s triumph sent another wave of emotion through the ranks of the team. Brakeman Curtis Tomasevicz was so excited he raised his arms in triumph before crossing the finish line.
“Our eyes met, and he (Holcomb) said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was very simple,” said Shimer, now the men’s coach, his voice quavering. “I don’t have a whole lot of words for it. The first thing I said when Holcomb crossed the line was, ‘It’s over! The drought is over!’ I’m so happy and proud of Steve, and doing it here on American soil.”
“I don’t think I breathed for the last 20 minutes,” said Bob Cuneo, chief engineer and designer of the Bo-Dyn bobsleds used by the U.S. team. “That’s pretty wild.”
Holcomb beat defending champion Andre Lange of Germany by nearly one second, an eye-popping margin in a sliding sport, finishing with a time of 3 minutes, 36.61 seconds. Janis Minins of Latvia took the bronze, one full second behind Holcomb.
“It’s huge,” Holcomb said, an American flag in his grasp and steam emanating from his sweat-laden head. “You can’t show these guys any leniency. They don’t show us any. Last year Lange won by like 15 seconds or something. I wanted to show him that we could do it, too.”
Todd Hays of Del Rio, Texas, finished ninth in USA-2 and John Napier of Schenectady, N.Y., was 11th in USA-3.
Holcomb’s triumph validated the decision by his coaches to keep him in Lake Placid to train on the track that would be hosting the world championships instead of competing in the final two European World Cup events in January.
“We’ve been here pretty much all year training. I don’t want to admit it and I don’t want the coaches to know that I said that, but I think it paid off,” said Holcomb, who underwent eye surgery last summer to correct his vision. “I drove by instinct. I didn’t have to think about what I was doing out there. It’s basically another day at the office, except that we won a world championship.”
Holcomb, of Park City, Utah, laid down a pair of solid runs on Saturday to take a commanding 0.48-second lead over Minins and World Cup champion Alexsandr Zubkov of Russia, who were tied for second entering Sunday’s final two heats. All Holcomb had to do was not make any mistakes and the gold would be his.
“We had a half-second lead and people already assumed we won,” Holcomb said. “It was hard to keep that mentality out of my mind. We had two more runs left and we still had to perform.”
Sliding first with the pressure of history on his shoulders and the clang of cowbells ringing in his ears as fans screamed encouragement up at the start house, Holcomb and his crew of Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Tomasevicz had a fast start — 4.99 seconds — to gain an immediate edge and rocketed through the 20-curve course, reaching a speed of just over 80 mph, to finish in 53.78 seconds.
That was a quarter of a second faster than his top run Saturday and just 0.11 off the track record set by Lange six years ago. And it sent yet another message it was Holcomb’s race to lose.
“We had a good lead, but I did have a good 19, 20 hours to think about it. That doesn’t help,” Holcomb said. “We were first off, the ice looked really good, and I knew that we would be fast. I really wanted to try to solidify it, and we did.”
Minins slid second, glanced off a couple of walls plummeting through the critical chicane just past the midpoint of the track, and finished in 54.08 to fall 0.78 seconds behind.
Zubkov was next, but after matching Holcomb’s start he nearly flipped Russia-1 in curve 3 to lose valuable time and finished in 54.32 to fall a daunting 1.02 seconds off the pace.
Lange, four-man champion five of the previous seven years, began the day in fourth, 0.49 seconds behind Holcomb. The German star, who took three weeks off to rest for worlds, had the fastest start at 4.97 seconds but couldn’t catch Holcomb, finishing in 54.06 to move into second place, 0.01 ahead of Minins but more than three quarters of a second behind Holcomb entering the final heat.
Though he failed to catch Holcomb, Lange etched his name in the record books. His silver boosted his combined career medal count at worlds and Olympics to a record 17, one more than Italian great Eugenio Monti.
“I’m happy. He (Monti) was one of the most special persons in bobsled,” said Lange, who beat Zubkov in four-man in worlds at Altenberg a year ago by over 2 seconds. “But this was one of the most difficult years of my career. I’m just going to enjoy it tonight.”
So, too, will Holcomb, who took a sled that was a prototype that had never been tested to the pinnacle of his sport.
“Technically, we have yet to test it,” Holcomb said. “From the first run I drove it, I knew it was going to be fast. I think it intimidates people. This sled, why isn’t it shiny? It’s the only one that isn’t.”
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