Island duo disappointed to miss top ten spot

JERSEY bobsleighers Will Golder and Kevan Crowell finished 12th in the World Junior Bobsleigh Championships in St Moritz at the weekend.

Admittedly disappointed with the result, as their goal had been to finish in the top ten of the 15 teams competing, Golder said he had been caught out by a change in conditions between practice and race day.

“This event was what we had been building up to all season and we had trained well all week, the track was fast and we were running smoothly.
But it got to race day and it was really cold which meant that the ice was a lot harder, making it more slippery so the sled doesn’t respond in the same way.
On our first run we had a really good start, our fastest ever of 5.40 seconds but because I hadn’t seen that the ice was so different I didn’t read the track quite right and my lines were a bit slower going down.”

The team, who had recorded the sixth fastest push start of the day, were lying in 14th after the first run but responded well on day two, shaving a second off their time from previous day, to move themselves up to 12th.

Golder, who was representing Great Britain with Crowell, added: “I drove much better lines down in the second run and we lowered our personal best time by four tenths.
Because I saw how good we could have been it did leave me disappointed with the overall result because I know we could have done better. If we had two runs like the second one we would have been in the top ten which is what we were aiming for.”

With the Winter Olympics starting this month, the bobsleigh season is cut slightly short this year meaning that Golder and Crowell can now take a break from life on the ice but they already have plans for next season.

“We are really pleased with this season on the whole as we have learnt so much being in the GB team. Now we are looking to train all year and put on some more weight, as we need to be a bit heavier so that we don’t have to carry weights in the sled which slows us down.
We would also like to get hold of a top standard sled as well as a four man sled as that is something we want to progress into. That is the top event, that’s where the fastest speeds are, so it would be great to have both two and four man events to compete in.”

The team is sponsored by Altis Partners Ltd, Play.com and Camerons Ltd.

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