Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson crashed dramatically on their penultimate run of the two-man bobsleigh in Yanqing as Great Britain’s Winter Olympics nightmare continued.
Hall’s sled overturned towards the end of the third heat and they slid over the finish line on their side, but both emerged largely unscathed. “We’ve got a few battle scars but nothing majorly concerning,” said Gleeson. At times on the Beijing track sleds have been exceeding 130km/h (80mph).
Incredibly, despite finishing sideways, they still qualified for heat four as one of the 20 fastest sleds after three runs. They went on to post a combined time of 3:59.92, and finished 11th overall. All of the medals went to German duos, with Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis setting a new track record of 58.99 on their way to the gold medal.
The Britons had started the final day of competition in 11th place after the first two runs, 1.36 seconds off the lead but only 0.42sec off the bronze medal position.
“It happens to everyone,” said Gleeson. “But when it happens, it is a survival instinct, you hold on and try not to get kicked out of the back. Thankfully it was quite an easy crash, quite short and it was over pretty quick.”
Hall added: “Some crashes that don’t look bad at all athletes end up having horrendous injuries and some that look really bad everyone walks away fine, so it’s difficult to tell. For us it was quite a tame crash, a little roll.”
Britain’s former two-time Olympian bobsledder John Jackson, who competed in the 2010 Vancouver and 2014 Sochi Games, told the BBC: “I completely feel for Brad Hall and Nick, I went through this in 2010 and it broke my heart. You are here, you are fighting, you are doing your best, you are representing your country.
“The main thing is, other than damaged pride is the guys look really good. I just hope Brad can forget about this now over the next few days and step into the four-man and take that as a chance to bring the medal home.”
Official training for the four-man sleds begins at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre on Wednesday. Hall and Gleeson will be joined by Taylor Lawrence and Greg Cackett in one of the last attempts for Team GB to avoid a medals wash-out in Beijing.
