Fractions of a second

Will double gold inspire push for clock changes?

DAEGWALLYEONG, SOUTH KOREA Justin Olsen, the American bobsled pilot, watched on a TV screen as the Canadian sled, the final entrant in the two-man bobsled race Monday night, barrelled into final turns, toward the bottom of the rack.

Canada’s sled, driver Justin Kripps and push man Alex Kopacz, had started the last run with a gold medal in sight, needing a run of 3:16.86 to keep pace with the German sled of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis.

On the screen, as the Canadian sled stormed around a turn, the differential clock flipped from green to red — Kripps and Kopacz were one hundredth of a second ahead of the Germans.

“He’s gonna get it,” Olsen said. But then, coming around Turn 13, Kripps steered into a slight skid, an imperceptible nudge against a side wall. It didn't look like much — except to Olsen.

“Nope,” Olsen said. “Not anymore. That bobble.”

In the next turn, Canada had picked up speed. It was going to be close, for sure.

“Maybe,” Olsen said. “If he does it, it’s going to be by a onehundredth.”

The Canadians crossed the line. The pace clock did not turn to red. Nor did it stay green. It turned white. The differential was 0:00:00. It was a tie, a dead heat after four trips, 3.1 miles of racing careening down an icy, winding hill. Two gold medals would be awarded.

On the track, it was mayhem. Nobody had any mixed feelings about a dual gold. Canadians hugged each other. Germans hugged each other. Germans hugged Canadians. The fans of both countries erupted.

Kripps got out of the sled to be embraced and high-fived by his teammates, then hugged by Margis, the German pusher.

“He was like, ‘It was three hundredths, and then two, and then we tied,’ ” Kripps said. “I was like, ‘ We tied?’ He was like, ‘Yeah!’ It’s amazing.”

Olsen predicted bobsled would move to a clock with thousandths of a second. There are good reasons to stick with the current system. If two sleds come with less than a hundredths of each other, should that really separate them?

Bobsled changing to thousandths felt inevitable to some.

“I think it needs to now,” said Canadian slider Jesse Lumsden. “You don’t see a ton of ties, but, shoot, I don’t know why you wouldn’t.”