Kaillie Humphries stays atop podium, beating Canada's De Bruin in 2-woman bobsleigh
Canadians Lotholz, Appiah place outside top 10 at World Cup event in Germany
Another day, another podium finish for Kaillie Humphries while former Canadian bobsleigh teammate Christine De Bruin medalled for a third consecutive weekend.
Humphries, who now races for the United States, took the two-woman event on Sunday with Kaysha Love in Altenberg, Germany, posting a two-run time of one minute 54.10 seconds for her 28th World Cup win.
"It's so exciting," Love said. "I was very excited to push for Kaillie, and I was hopeful that I could give her a chance for another podium finish. As always, you never know what's going to happen, but I wanted to go out there and do my best."
It was Love's first medal and only her second World Cup start.
"I'm really excited for our program that we have a young, fantastic brakeman," Humphries, a Calgary native, said. "She is super coachable and eager to learn, and I'm looking forward to seeing her continue to grow in this sport. She stepped up in this race, knowing I wouldn't be at my best and I applaud her."
On Saturday, Humphries won the women's monobob competition after gaining U.S. citizenship this week to become eligible to compete for American at the Beijing Olympics in February.
WATCH | Humphries wins 1st World Cup race since gaining U.S. citizenship:
De Bruin, who narrowly missed a monobob bronze medal on Saturday, returned to the track 24 hours later and placed third in 1:54.45 with brakeman Kristen Bujnowski of Mount Brydges, Ont.
WATCH | De Bruin and Bujnowski extend podium streak:
Germany's Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi were second in 1:54.14.
3rd in overall World Cup standings
The Canadian duo moved into third spot in the overall World Cup two-woman bobsleigh standings after clocking a two-run time of 1:54.45 on the 17-turn beast of a track in Altenberg, Germany.
"It's always great to podium on a German track so we are happy, but also very hungry to climb even higher on the podium," De Bruin, who sits third with her partner in the overall World Cup two-woman standings, said in a statement released by Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton.
Two of their six career World Cup medals have come at the German track, regarded as one of the most challenging bobsleigh tests in the world. They captured their first World Cup medal, silver in 2019, in Altenberg. One year later, they also celebrated their second-career world championship bronze medal on the 1,413-metre German chute.
"Altenberg used to be one of my favourite tracks, but as I'm getting older, it just hurts," laughed De Bruin, a 2018 Olympian. "The pressures [in the corners] are a lot here, but it is always fun coming here because it is such a huge challenge."
With Bujnowski sidelined with an injury last year, De Bruin struggled to a 16th-place finish in both the two-woman and monobob races at worlds in Altenberg.
"This weekend was redemption for Christine and I'm so proud of her. I know it wasn't easy for her to come back here after those results at world championships last season," said the 29-year-old Bujnowski, who has been the force behind de Bruin's sled each week at the start of the track on the journey to Beijing. "She really wanted to prove to herself that she is good here and I thought she did amazing."
In the four-man competition, Canada's foursome of Justin Kripps, Cam Stones, Ryan Sommer and Ben Coakwell was fifth in 1:48.90. Kripps of Summerland, B.C., and Sommer of White Rock, B.C., were sixth in the two-man event on Saturday.
36 straight 2-man races with medal
Francesco Friedrich of Germany extended his streak to 36 straight World Cup two-man races with a medal, capturing gold in 1:47.96, 67-100ths of a second ahead of Austria's Benjamin Maier and his crew. Rounding out the medal podium was Russia's Rostislav Gaitiukevich (1:48.76).
Friedrich and Alexander Schueller won Saturday's two-man 1:49.96.
Friedrich now has 67 medals — 52 gold, 11 silver, four bronze — in his last 71 major international two- and four-man races including World Cup events, the Olympics and the world championships.
Vancouver's Chris Spring, Ottawa's Mike Evelyn and Cody Sorenson along with Sam Giguère of Sherbrooke, Que., placed 11th of 23 finishing teams.
On Saturday, Spring and Evelyn slid to fourth for their best finish together in the two-man competition.
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With files from The Associated Press
