Canada’s team Kripps won a silver medal in the Bobsleigh World Cup in Germany on Sunday.
The silver medal in Winterberg was the team’s first podium this season.
Summerland’s Kripps piloted his crew of Ben Coakwell from Saskatoon, Ryan Sommer from White Rock, and Cam Stones from Whitby, Ont. with a combined time of two runs of 1: 48.70.
The course was a route with 15 corners.
“We had a really good execution on both advances. We worked on that this off-season. Being able to do it on race day is exactly what we wanted, ”said Kripps.
ALSO READ: Summerland’s Justin Kripps wins bronze medals in a row in the weekend race
ALSO READ: Kripps prepares for bobsleigh championships
Canada’s bobsleigh riders had trained at home for the first half of the World Cup season as COVID-19 brought international travel risks.
“Our team motto was always ‘stay ready’ because we never really knew when we would get the chance to race this year,” said Sommer, the youngest member of the team.
“We were very happy to come out today and schedule the runs we did – from the starts to Justin’s drive. We really wanted this for each other today. This is a great start to the season and we look forward to expanding that headline over the next week in St. Moritz. “
The silver medal triumph was the ninth four-man medal as a pilot for Kripps. It was the sixth four-man podium for the burly Canadian crew since they climbed into the same sled together after the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
The Canadian crew also won bronze in the foursome at the 2019 World Championships.
“This achievement is proof of the team that we have built up over the past few years. It shows who we are – to be barely able to slip in a challenging training environment at this time and to get on the podium straight away, ”said Kripps.
He said the German route was a challenging course.
“This route is difficult because the Germans have a million training runs here and the weather is always terrible. It can also be tricky here because you can fall asleep upstairs where there is no speed or pressure and sometimes you don’t pay attention to the details that the slow speed creates for the ground, ”he said
The next competition for the team will take place next weekend in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
To report a typo, send an email to:
news@summerlandreview.com.
news@summerlandreview.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Sports
Get local stories you won’t find anywhere else straight to your inbox.
Login here
Justin Kripps from Summerland shows the thumbs up at a competition recently held in Germany. (IBSF photo)
