Elana Meyers Taylor in second, Melanie Hasler takes bronze for Swiss home team
St. Moritz (RWH) Defending 2-woman Bobsleigh World Cup champion Stephanie Schneider celebrated her second victory of the season in the 2020/2021 BMW IBSF World Cup in St. Moritz (SUI). On the Olympia Bobrun St. Moritz Celerina, Schneider and push athlete Leonie Fiebig, third after the first heat, set a track record in the second run (1:07,99 minutes) to win the race.
The athletes had made the sixth race of the season extremely exciting: On the longest World Cup track of the winter with a good 1,700 meters, the teams in first to fifth place were separated by just six hundredths of a second after the first run.
Second place in the World Cup went to the U.S. team of Elana Meyers Taylor/Sylvia Hoffman (0.08 seconds back), who set the best start time of 5.42 seconds. Meyers Taylor, a mother of a son since 11 months, thus stood on the podium for the first time in the second race after giving birth.
The Swiss athletes Melanie Hasler/Irina Strebel (0.19 seconds back) celebrated third place in the World Cup in St. Moritz and their first ever podium finish. Hasler/Strebel relegated the previously leading Olympic champion Mariama Jamanka (GER) to fourth place in the second run. Martina Fontanive/Nadja Pasternack as the second 2-woman bob from Switzerland rounded off the excellent result of the home team in fifth place.
In the overall ranking of the BMW IBSF World Cup 2020/2021, Austria's Katrin Beierl (1122 pionts) is in the lead before the last two races after finishing tenth in St. Moritz. Previously leading Kim Kalicki (GER) was not at the start on the Olympia Bobrun. Overall second is European Champion Laura Nolte (GER, 1061), in sixth place in St. Moritz. Melanie Hasler (SUI, 1048) is now third in the overall World Cup standings after her first podium finish.
For more detailed information including athlete profiles and World Cup results please visit ibsf.org. Photos for editorial use can be found at Flickr. ©RWH2021
Photos: IBSF / Viesturs Lacis
