By David Kirton
YANQING, China (Reuters) – Britain’s Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson were back in bobsleigh action on Thursday, two days after a dramatic crash, joining team mates Greg Cackett and Taylor Lawrence as they made ready for the four-man event, the finale of the sliding sports.
Some in the British press may have painted it as if disaster had struck when Hall and Gleeson crashed in the third run of the two-man bobsleigh on Tuesday.
But the pair kept calm and carried on for a fourth run soon after, and Hall said he was feeling “pretty good” after training on Thursday ahead of the four-man competition that begins on Saturday.
“Second day back in the four-man, so a couple of nice runs today and we can progress into tomorrow and get ready for the race.”
On Tuesday, the pair were rocketing down the Yanqing at over 130 km an hour when the bobsleigh’s runners mounted the siding and tipped over, leaving their heads perilously close to the ice as they skidded through the finish line.
But Hall and Gleeson said they were “perfectly fine”.
“These sorts of things happen in sport racing especially. The best way to get over them is to just jump straight back in the driving seat and carry on,” Hall said.
Despite the flip, the team still finished the round with a competitive time, finishing 11th overall, Britain’s highest finish in the Olympic event since 2002.
While the team garners attention back home, the current crop doesn’t feel any pressure, said Gleeson.
“Everyone out there knows that we’re not a massive winter sporting nation. We don’t have snow, we don’t have ski slopes. We don’t have our own bobsleigh track or anything like that.
“The closest track from us is about a 10-, 12-hour drive. So trying to do all this stuff against some of these nations out here that have home facilities is quite hard.”
The four-man team was feeling confident on Thursday, where they finished sixth and seventh respectively on their two runs on the day.
It comes after they finished the last World Cup season in fourth place overall – heights Britain hadn’t scaled this century.
“Considering the season that we just had, obviously we’ve got the COVID and everything, the results we have in the world cup is absolutely amazing. So we try and top it off here,” Gleeson said.
“The pressure for us really is internally created because we had an amazing season, and internal pressure’s easy to control,” said Greg Cackett.
“We just chill out, we come together. We do what we’ve done today, a couple of good pushes, couple of good drives. The boys are back with us now, so it feels like we’re a solid unit again. We go full bore on the weekend,” he said.
“Can’t wait, honestly.”
(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
