From Pyeongchang, KOR
Feb. 18, 2018 – Nico Walther will take a .10 lead into the second day of sliding in two-man bobsled.
The German came into the second run in third place, but a heat-fastest second run (in which he crashed at the finish) moved him up into the lead ahead of first heat leaders Oskars Melbardis and Justin Kripps.
“We had some good runs today, I think we didn’t make many mistakes,” Walther said. “But it’s just halftime and we have to do the same tomorrow and see where we finish.”
Kripps came into the second heat just .02 off of Melbardis’ time, and despite a clean run couldn’t move up to the lead.
“We put together two pretty good runs today,” Kripps said of his first heat. “Maybe not as good as I wanted, but all in all pretty good and it’s a great way to go into day two.”
Johannes Lochner will go into the second day of sliding in third place, moving up from sixth in the first heat on the strength of a second run matched only by Walther.
Oskars Melbardis came into the second heat as the leader, but struggled on his second run, putting down only the tenth fastest run. He was otherwise happy with his race thus far despite a troubled second run.
“It was a good first run, but I made a big mistake int he second corner. We lost some time, but tomorrow we have two more runs and we’ll see what happens.”
Curve 2 for Melbardis, like so many others, was a problem. “For me it’s difficult, I was really good in the first run, but made a mistake in the second. I’ll go back and watch the video and see what I did wrong and fix it for tomorrow.”
Francesco Friedrich and Oskars Kibermanis rounded out the top six at the end of the first day of sliding.
It was a solid start for the Canadians. On top of Kripps’ second place run, both Nick Poloniato and Chris Spring were tied for tenth place.
Justin Olsen led the way for an otherwise difficult start for the United States. Olsen will go into the second day of sliding in 12th place, .25 back of the Canadians, while Nick Cunningham and Codie Bascue sit well outside of the top 20 in 24th and 25th, respectively.
Despite a bit of trouble, Olsen was content with his first day of sliding.
“My timing is a little off on the entrance [to curve 9], and we need to clean some stuff up at the start. We weren’t as quick as we wanted to be, but these trips were a lot better than training was.”
Olsen had his appendix removed less than two weeks before competition. Despite that, he feels just about back to normal.
“I feel really good, that thing’s been giving me trouble for about seven years now. Physically I feel pretty good, it’s not the best I’ve ever felt in my life, but all things considered I feel really good.”
Brad Hall, the lone British slider in the field, finished the day in seventh place.
“I’m really happy, we had two really consistent runs. We’re in really good position for tomorrow.”
Aussie pilot Lucas Mata had a great final day of training and backed that up with a 21st place run and a shot to move into the top 20.
“To be 21st puts me in a really good position to get me into the top 20 tomorrow,” Mata said. “The last run of training was super quick, and I knew if I could match that then I’d be in a good spot.”
The third run of two-man bobsled kicks off on Monday, February 19 at 8:15 PM KST (6:15 AM EST).
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Nico Walther / Christian Poser | GER | 11 | 49.12 | 49.27 | 1:38.39 |
| 2 | Justin Kripps / Alexander Kopacz | CAN | 6 | 49.10 | 49.39 | 1:38.49 |
| 3 | Johannes Lochner / Christopher Weber | GER | 10 | 49.24 | 49.34 | 1:38.58 |
| 4 | Oskars Melbardis / Janis Strenga | LAT | 13 | 49.08 | 49.54 | 1:38.62 |
| 5 | Francesco Friedrich / Thorsten Margis | GER | 7 | 49.22 | 49.46 | 1:38.68 |
| 6 | Oskars Kibermanis / Matiss Miknis | LAT | 9 | 49.21 | 49.57 | 1:38.78 |
| 7 | Brad Hall / Joel Fearon | GBR | 2 | 49.37 | 49.50 | 1:38.87 |
| 8 | Benjamin Maier / Markus Sammer | AUT | 15 | 49.41 | 49.47 | 1:38.88 |
| 9 | Yunjong Won / Youngwoo Seo | KOR | 30 | 49.50 | 49.39 | 1:38.89 |
| 10 | Nick Poloniato / Jesse Lumsden | CAN | 14 | 49.48 | 49.48 | 1:38.96 |
| 10 | Chris Spring / Lascelles Brown | CAN | 8 | 49.38 | 49.58 | 1:38.96 |
| 12 | Justin Olsen / Evan Weinstock | USA | 19 | 49.66 | 49.55 | 1:39.21 |
| 13 | Rico Peter / Simon Friedli | SUI | 12 | 49.72 | 49.53 | 1:39.25 |
| 14 | Dominik Dvorak / Jakub Nosek | CZE | 21 | 49.70 | 49.63 | 1:39.33 |
| 15 | Markus Treichl / Kilian Walch | AUT | 24 | 49.67 | 49.67 | 1:39.34 |
| 16 | Mihai Tentea / Nicolae Daroczi | ROU | 26 | 49.69 | 49.72 | 1:39.41 |
| 17 | Romain Heinrich / Dorian Hauterville | FRA | 23 | 49.74 | 49.73 | 1:39.47 |
| 18 | Rudy Rinaldi / Boris Vain | MON | 25 | 49.85 | 49.69 | 1:39.54 |
| 19 | Clemens Bracher / Michael Kuonen | SUI | 17 | 49.73 | 49.90 | 1:39.63 |
| 20 | Alexey Stulnev / Vasiliy Kondratenko | OAR | 18 | 49.77 | 49.99 | 1:39.76 |
| 21 | Lucas Mata / David Mari | AUS | 3 | 49.88 | 50.04 | 1:39.92 |
| 22 | Mateusz Luty / Krzysztof Tylkowski | POL | 22 | 49.87 | 50.10 | 1:39.97 |
| 23 | Jan Vrba / Jakub Havlin | CZE | 29 | 49.93 | 50.07 | 1:40.00 |
| 24 | Nick Cunningham / Hakeem Abdul-Saboor | USA | 16 | 49.96 | 50.11 | 1:40.07 |
| 25 | Codie Bascue / Samuel McGuffie | USA | 20 | 50.03 | 50.16 | 1:40.19 |
| 26 | Chunjian Li / Sidong Wang | CHN | 27 | 50.13 | 50.21 | 1:40.34 |
| 27 | Edson Bindilatti / Edson Martins | BRA | 1 | 50.14 | 50.22 | 1:40.36 |
| 28 | Jian Jin / Hao Shi | CHN | 28 | 50.47 | 50.17 | 1:40.64 |
| 29 | Maxim Andrianov / Yury Selikhov | OAR | 5 | 50.27 | 50.58 | 1:40.85 |
| 30 | Drazen Silic / Benedikt Nikpalj | CRO | 4 | 50.76 | 50.91 | 1:41.67 |
