The Canadian duo of Christine De Bruin and Kristen Bujnowski were in a familiar spot on Sunday, scoring a second bronze medal in as many weeks at a World Cup event in Austria.
A week after they landed on the podium at the season-opening World Cup event at the Igls track, the team concluded its two runs on Sunday in a combined time of one minute 46.86 seconds, once again behind a pair of German sleds.
Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi took gold in 1:46.71, and compatriots Kim Galicki and Leonie Fiebig finished 6-100ths behind them for silver.
It’s the third podium this fall for the Canadians — De Bruin and Bujnowski also took bronze at an Olympic test event in Beijing in October.
“We continue to do our best to be consistent each time we go down the track,” de Bruin said. “I had the same goals today – drive well and push fast. We were able to do that and come out with a medal. We are hungry for more and will continue to find ways to get us faster and higher on the podium.”
Teammates Cynthia Appiah and Dawn Richardson Wilson were eighth in 1:47.56 while Melissa Lotholz of Barrhead, Alta., and Toronto’s Erica Voss were 11th (1:47.84).
In the men’s four-man event, Canada’s Justin Kripps and Cam Stones picked up another bronze medal after doing so in the two-man competition on Saturday, teaming with Ben Coakwell and Ryan Sommer to clock 1:42.15.
“It was a really tight race, and we are happy to come away with a medal,” Kripps said. “The runs and pushes were pretty good with just a couple of little mistakes. It’s a great sign for us to be able to move up from sixth [first run] to third. Getting two medals here on a track that we have traditionally not done well on is big for us.”
Francesco Friedrich of Germany extended his World Cup four-man bobsled winning streak to six races with another triumph on Sunday.
Friedrich, by far the most dominant bobsledder in the world, is 2-for-2 in four-man races this season after winning all four World Cup events in that discipline last season.
He finished two runs Sunday in 1:41.82 while Oskars Kibermanis drove to silver for Latvia, 0.28 seconds off the winning pace.
Friedrich now has 65 medals — 50 gold, 11 silver, four bronze — in his last 69 major international two- and four-man races including World Cup events, the Olympics and the world championships. The World Cup bobsled and skeleton tour moves to Altenberg, Germany, next weekend.
