Bobsled Preview: Humphries, Meyers Taylor Lead US Hopes
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(AP) -- At the last Olympics, Kaillie Humphries was Canadian and women's bobsledders had just one chance to win medals.
A few things have changed over the last four years.
Humphries holds American citizenship now, and she'll be competing in two events at the Beijing Games, with this set to become the first Olympics where monobob is included in the medal program. And the three-time medalist is looking for more.
Olympic gold is what drives her, and most bobsledders, like nothing else. The longtime star of the Canadian bobsled team began sliding for the Americans three seasons ago, needing a lengthy legal and administrative fight just to get a U.S. passport in time to compete in these Olympics. She got it, with just a few weeks to spare.
Now, she has a chance at double medals. The women have their customary two-person event, plus monobob -- just a driver in the sled, no brakeman -- is a huge chance for some of the best pilots in the world to enhance their Olympic legacies. Humphries is the reigning world champion and fellow U.S. driver Elana Meyers Taylor has been arguably the best monobobber in the world this season.
But here's more proof that it's all about Beijing: Meyers Taylor -- also a three-time Olympic medalist, one of those coming as a push athlete -- skipped a monobob race a few weeks ago, thinking more about long-term goals than short-term gains.
It'll be the usual suspects who enter the Beijing Games as medal favorites. The U.S. could get as many as four of the six medals awarded in women's races. And on the men's side, it's all about Germany -- which means it's all about Francesco Friedrich.
The double-gold winner from the Pyeongchang Games is the overwhelming favorite to win double gold again at these Olympics. Nobody has ever swept both men's events in back-to-back Olympics; Germany's Andre Lange came closest, winning four-man golds in 2002 and 2006, plus two-man golds in 2006 and 2010.
His dominance has been unmatched in the sport's history: seven consecutive world championships in two-man, four consecutive world championships in four-man, and since the Pyeongchang Games he's won an absurd 82% of his international races. A three-week training stint in China this fall showed Friedrich what he has to do there to be successful in February, and his confidence is high.
LOOKING FOR SIX
The U.S. bobsled team is seeking to win a medal for the sixth consecutive Olympics, and frankly, it'd be a complete disaster if the Americans didn't get at least one. A medal in six games in a row would tie the longest such streak in U.S. Olympic bobsled history; it also happened in six straight from 1928 through 1956. Switzerland has the record for medal streaks in bobsled, winning one in 11 consecutive Olympics from 1968 through 2006.
MIND THE GAP
Britain has only five Olympic bobsled medals and hasn't had an on-track medal celebration since 1998; the four-man medal won in 2014 was awarded years later after the British were promoted to bronze following the disqualification of Russian sleds in a doping scandal. But Brad Hall has been a contender just about every week in World Cup races this season, and he looks like a legit challenger.