World Champion Elana Meyers Taylor second ahead of Stephanie Schneider
PyeongChang (RWH): At the halfway point of proceedings in the Olympic women’s bobsleigh, Mariama Jamanka (GER) is on track to take home the gold in PyeongChang (KOR). After the second of four heats at the Olympic Sliding Centre, the 2017 European Champion and her brakewoman Lisa Buckwitz have a 0.07-second lead over Elana Meyers Taylor of the USA. The World Champion and her brakewoman Lauren Gibbs will go into the second and final day of racing in second place.
A slightly larger gap currently separates Taylor from the athletes in third place, European Champions Stephanie Schneider/Annika Drazek (GER, 0.30 seconds back). The other pairing with a strong chance of claiming Olympic bronze are the 2014 Olympic bronze medallists Jamie Greubel Poser/Aja Evans of the USA (0.32 seconds back). Two-time Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries (CAN) and her brakewoman Phylicia George are in fifth at the halfway point in PyeongChang (0.34 seconds back).
Local heroes Yooran Kim/Minseong Kim (KOR) will enter the second day of racing in PyeongChang in 13th place. ©RWH2018
>> Result
Mariama Jamanka (GER, 2017 European Champion)
“A 0.07-second gap is barely anything – the races that we’ve seen here so far have demonstrated that! I didn’t think either of our two runs today were particularly good, which is why I wasn’t expecting to end up in first place. And it’s impossible to say what tomorrow will bring.”
Elana Meyers Taylor (USA, 2014 Olympic silver medallist, 2015 and 2017 World Champion)
“Two starting records in one evening is not showing off! We simply wanted to give it our all here. Four years ago in Sochi, I focused on defending my lead; we can go into tomorrow on the attack. What will be will be – but we don’t just want to retain our position, we want to improve it!”
Stephanie Schneider (GER, 2018 European Champion, 2016 Junior World Champion)
“We can clearly do a lot more with our start times. I’m really happy with my first run and the second start was then even better than the first one. However, we definitely have a lot of room left to improve. We are really going to attack it!”
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