Humphries denied overall title as Rissling takes bobsleigh bronze
CBC Sports | Posted: March 18, 2017 12:35 PM | Last Updated: March 18, 2017
Canada's 2-man teams all finish top-10 in final event of the season
The World Cup women's bobsleigh season wrapped up on a high note for one of Canada's pilots on Saturday in Pyeongchang, while the other was left off the podium, and missed the overall title by a mere 14 points.
Alysia Rissling guided her sled and brakeman Cynthia Appiah to a bronze-medal finish on the 2018 Olympic track, while Kaillie Humphries and Melissa Lotholz finished off the podium in fifth place.
With Jamie Greubel-Poser winning gold in the Pyeongchang event, the American pilot took the 225 points awarded to the winner and wrapped up the women's overall title with a total of 1644 points on the season.
Humphries — who came into Saturday's race with a small 27 point lead in the standings — took 184 points for her fifth-place result, and finished second overall with 1630 points.
American pilot Elana Meyers Taylor scored bronze in the race and took third overall on the season.
Rissling's first podium finish of the season helped her finished eighth in the overall standings with a total of 1016 points.
"You always go to bed wishing you have a chance to medal, but whether it is realistic or not is a different story," Rissling said. "Cynthia and I went into this race with high expectations of our ourselves. We were pushing fast in training and considering it's the last race of the year, our bodies felt good.
"Over the next seven months I'm going make sure I do everything I can throughout the summer so I'm prepared when I get to this spot again in February."
Canadian men all finish in top-10
On the men's side, Canadian pilot Nick Poloniato and brakeman Lascelles Brown were just five-hundredths of a second off the podium, taking a fourth-place finish.
Germany's Francesco Friedrich and Thirsten Margis won gold in 1:40.82, followed by Lativa's Oskars Kibermans and Matiss Miknis (0.30), and fellow Germans Johannes Lochner and Joshua Bluhm (0.34).
The Canadian sled of Chris Spring and Neville Wright were sixth (0.52) while Justin Kripps and Jesse Lumsden were seventh (0.53).
The final standings have Kripps as the top Canadian pilot in ninth place (976), Spring was 14th (730), and Poloniato was 21st (487) in his rookie campaign.
"We didn't get the result we wanted in the two-man because of a key mistake at the top of the track," Kripps said. "I tried to be too cute in corner two and it backfired. I didn't make the same mistake twice and was happy to have the second fastest run in the second heat.
"I think this event is a key opportunity to test lines and equipment and we've gotten what we needed to out of it."