British Bobsleigh duo make solid start

16 February 2014

The 2-man bobsleigh got under way at Sochi this afternoon (Sunday 16 February) with Olympic débutante Lamin Deen and late replacement John Baines taking to the ice for Team GB.

The pair were only able to practice a handful of times in the build up to the Sochi Games. The experienced Baines was a late replacement for the injured Craig Pickering, but the duo didn’t seem let the change to the team hold them back.

In Heat 1, as the 25th team to set off, the duo registered a time of 57.54, with a good sprint start of 4.94, which put them in 21st position, just behind the Monaco’s pair and tied with the Dutch duo.

Among the favourites for the Gold medal is the USA’s number one team. The American’s have three teams in the competition and their top team, who were first down the track, broke the track record at the first time of asking with a time of 56.34.

But that didn’t last long. The top Russian twosome was third down and took seven hundredths of a second off that time, crossing the line in 56.25 seconds.

Heat 2 saw Baines and Deen, both members of the armed forces, clock 57.81 down the 1500 metres of the course, this time coming off a start of 4.95. That took their total time to 1:55.35 and left them in 23rd place heading into tomorrow’s final two runs.

The Gold medal position overnight belongs to the Russian pair of Zubkov and Veovoda with a combined time of 1:52.86, followed by Switzerland’s Hefti and Baumann and the USA’s Holcomb and Langton who are +0.32 and +0.36 off the top respectively.

With the British Bobsleigh pair hoping for top 20 finish they are well placed to achieve their target with two runs to go.

British Bobsleigh has its headquarters at the University of Bath where British athletes hone their starting skills on the unique push-start track.

You can find a full schedule of the Sochi action featuring athletes with Bath links on the Team Bath website.

Catch the pick of the action on the big screen at the University of Bath Sports Training Village.

A full list of current standings is available on the Sochi website.

More information about British Bobsleigh can be found on their website.

For information about TeamGB visit their website.

For further information please contact the Team Bath press office at Matchtight Ltd at press@matchtight.co.uk or on 01225 383518.

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