Canada's Kripps slides to 6th as Germany's Friedrich wins 4-man bobsleigh
Canadian-coached Korean sled ties Germany's Walther for silver
By The Canadian Press
Canada's Justin Kripps piloted Canada-1 to sixth place in the 4-man bobsleigh final with a combined time of three minutes, 16.69 seconds.
The 31-year-old was attempting to win his second medal of the Games after tying for gold in the two-man competition alongside brakeman Alex Kopacz. But the quartet of Kripps, Kopacz, Jesse Lumsden and Seyi Smith fell back two spots in Sunday's final two trips down the track as Swiss and Latvian sleds pulled ahead of them.
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"Really proud of the crew. They did their job extremely well. I thought I drove well, just little mistakes," Kripps said. For whatever reason we couldn't find the speed down the track."
"It probably comes down to some mistakes that I'm not feeling with the transition from two-man to four-man. My sleds are very different."
"Of course we're disappointed, but at the same time proud of the way we executed. That's sports sometimes."
Friedrich golden again
Germany's Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis won gold in 3:15.85.
Korea's Won Yunjong and Germany's Nico Walther tied for silver in 3:16.38. The Korean sled was coached by Canada's Pierre Lueders, who co-won gold at the Nagano Games in the two-man.
The two German medals pushed the country's total to 30 at the Games, one more than Canada. Norway holds a comfortable lead in first with 38 medals.
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Hamilton's Nick Poloniato, Cam Stones of Whitby, Ont., London's Josh Kirkpatrick and Ben Coakwell of Moose Jaw, Sask., were 12th in 3:17.81.
Chris Spring of Priddis, Alta., Calgary's Lascelles Brown, and the Edmonton duo of Bryan Barnett and Neville Wright wound up 16th in 3:17.96.
"That third run was one of the best runs of the whole entire Games, and that's the truth, but unfortunately we didn't have the time at the bottom," said Brown, Canada's oldest male Olympian in Pyeongchang at 43. "I'm proud of these guys, we did our best."
"20 years into it, now it's time to shut it down, but I'm looking forward to the generation coming."
Kripps and Kopacz raced to a dramatic gold-medal tie with Friedrich and Margis in two-man bobsled on Monday.
Canada failed to reach the men's Olympic bobsled podium in Sochi, Russia, four years ago.
Lyndon Rush won bronze in four-man at the 2010 Games in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., for the country's first men's four-man medal since 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria.