GB Finish 12th in 2-man

Brad Hall piloted Great Britain to a 12th place finish in the 2-man bobsleigh at the Olympic Winter Games on Monday and Tuesday evening.

Hall was pushed by Taylor Lawrence in Runs 1 and 2 and Leon Greenwood for Runs 3 and 4, with Greenwood making his Olympic debut after Lawrence withdraw as a precautionary measure after the second day warm up.

With Greenwood not pushing at full tilt having come into the team at such short notice and a medal always unlikely having sat eighth overnight, GB clocked a four-run time of 3 minutes 43.43 seconds in Cortina.

Germany claimed a clean sweep of the podium places for the second Olympic 2-man competition in a row, with Johannes Lochner celebrating his first gold, having previously won silver in both the 2-man and 4-man disciplines four years ago.

Francesco Friedrich, the gold medalist in both Beijing in 2022 and PyeongChang in 2018, had to settle for silver, 1.34 seconds behind his team mate, with Adam Ammour third, almost half a second further back.

America’s Frank Del Duca was the highest placed non-German sled in fourth.

“I’m quite happy with how things ended up - not in the way of the 2-man result but in terms of preparation for the 4-man,” said Hall.

Taylor was a bit tight and so we decided not to risk putting him in today. We knew we weren't in it for the medals in the 2-man after the first day and so we wanted to keep him safe so he was ready to perform at the weekend.

“Leon got the call up last minute. He's never done a 2-man World Cup race, never mind an Olympic race, so he was straight in at the deep end. He's only done one 2-man push all season and then jumps in and does the job. We just wanted to get down the track: it's an extra two runs for me to work things out and I feel like I've done that today. I'm looking forward to 4-man training now tomorrow.”

“I’m just a little kid from Batley who has worked hard to somehow get here, and I'm now an Olympian,” added Greenwood.

“It means an awful lot. I thought that I would just be competing on the weekend so today I put a post out saying 'five days from my Olympic debut', and then a few hours later I got a call up. I'm just really appreciative and ready for the 4-man now.”

Hall, Lawrence and Greenwood go again on Saturday and Sunday, when they will be joined in the GB 4-man crew by Greg Cackett.

Run 1 of the 4-man begins at 9am GMT on Saturday as GB look to improve on their sixth-place showing in Beijing.

Leon Greenwood made his Olympic debut on Tuesday night

Adele Nicoll finished 18th in the monobob on Monday as she made her Olympic bow four years after being the spare brakewoman for the 2-man competition in Beijing.

Nicoll was superb in the first three runs and had jumped up to 11th ahead of the final lauf but a disappointing last run saw the 29-year-old drop down the field.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Nicoll, who only took to the front seat at the start of this Olympic cycle.

Sitting in 11th going into that final run was a season's best position for me to be in. The three solid runs showed what I am capable of.

“This track is extremely punishing of mistakes and I made far too many of them in that fourth run, which saw me go to the back of the field. That was never what I anticipated and it's not reflective of my abilities as a pilot.

“I think it just shows the lack of Olympic environment experience. Hopefully, the runs I did put down show that I have potential to do far better in the future. Should I have another experience in an Olympic Games in the future, I will take this with me and I'm sure I will perform better next time.”

Adele Nicoll is competing at her first Olympic Winter Games

Elana Meyers Taylor finally won Olympic gold after three silvers and two bronze, with her American team-mate Kaillie Armbruster Humphries finishing third behind Germany’s Laura Nolte.

Nicoll races again in the 2-woman event on Friday and Saturday, with Summer Olympian Ashleigh Nelson Nicoll’s brakewoman.

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