Nolte Wins in Snowy Winterberg

From Winterberg, GER

(January 9, 2022) – It was a snowy morning in Winterberg and while the snow may have affected some of the two-woman bobsled teams, Laura Nolte still came out on top on her home ice.

Heavy snow in the area had pushed back the start of the day’s racing. Once the race got going, it was clear some residual snow in the track made things significantly slower, with some run times slower than in the monobob race. As the heat went on the track cleared, and those with later start draws took advantage.

After the first run Germany’s Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi held a .44 lead over Mingming Huai and Xuan Wang on Nolte’s home ice while Kaillie Humphries and Sylvia Hoffman sat third.

On the second run the track was significantly faster and far more consistent. On that better track, Kim Kalicki drove she and Leonie Fiebig up from fifth into the lead with only Nolte to go. Nolte’s second run was bumpy and only fifth quickest of the heat, but her large first run advantage was enough to give her the win, her third straight.

Kalicki edged out the United States’  Kaillie Humphries and Sylvia Hoffman for silver, while the Americans won bronze.

For Humphries, the bronze was her first Winterberg medal since 2016.

Nolte was really happy with yet another gold.

“It’s my home track,” she told IBSF TV after the race. “I learned to drive here. In the first heat I put down what was my best run ever so I’m really happy about that. It began snowing before our second run, so that made things hard, but we held on.”

Elana Meyers Taylor had an early start draw in snowier conditions and despite a clean drive and the fastest push of the heat the American found herself in 11th after the first heat. Her second run was nearly two seconds quicker and was enough to move her up to fourth. Canada’s Christine de Bruin was over a second quicker to jump up to fifth from sixth, while Huai fell to sixth on her second run.

Canadians Cynthia Appiah and Dawn Richardson Wilson finished 12th after a couple of mistakes on their second run dropped them from eighth. Teammates Melissa Lotholz and Sara Villani  had a major skid through Curve 0 that left her 20th after the first heat. The combination of a cleaner track and a cleaner run that was over two seconds quicker moved her up from 20th to 18th.

Mica McNeill moved up from 16th to finish 14th in the lone British entry.

With one race to go in the IBSF World Cup Elana Meyers Taylor leads Laura Nolte, while Christine de Bruin, Kim Kalicki, and Kaillie Humphries round out the top five.

Results: