Two golds won at Park City course

Mica Mcneill and Montell Douglas scored two golds in as many days at Park City in Utah. The British pair clocked 1min 40.44secs in their first day’s sledding, clocking the fastest time on each of the two runs during the second stop of their early season tour of the United States and Canada. They were 0.36 seconds ahead of silver medalists and home favourites Nicole Vogt and Terra Evans and almost a second clear of China’s bronze-winning crew. The win was Mcneill’s second North American Cup success and her 12th top-three finish in 22 races on that circuit over the past six years. It was a first NAC gold for 2008 summer Olympian and former British 100m record holder Douglas and a second win overall, following on from her Europa Cup triumph with Mcneill in Winterberg in January 2017. The duo, part of the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton set-up based at the University of Bath, backed up that display with an even more clear-cut success the following day. Mcneill and Douglas finished more than half a second ahead of the silver-medal crew from China and an incredible 2.46 seconds in front of the Australian team who finished fourth. Their combined two-run time was 1:40.67, with their first run time of 50.06 seconds identical to the same run the day before. In the men’s two-man bobsleigh on day one, Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson made it on to the wider podium as they finished fourth of 25 sleds at the same track. Hall, who drove the GB four-man crew to World Cup bronze at Park City a year ago, missed out on the same colour medal by 0.05secs after clocking an overall time of 1:38.51. Fellow Olympian Lamin Deen placed 12th in a race won by Monaco’s Rudy Rinaldi after he and John Baines clocked 1:39.14. The following day in the men’s two-man races, Hall and Hames just missed out on bronze as they finished fourth in 1:38.74, 0.17 behind the Swiss team in third. Deen and Axel Brown joined their team-mates on the wider podium as they placed sixth of 25 in 1:38.87, just 0.013secs behind Hall and Hames. “It was another solid race day and I’m a happy coach,” said British Bobsleigh head coach, Lee Johnston. “Back-to-back gold medals is great to see, so a big ‘well done’ to Mica and Montell. “All the crews made small improvements on the whole and I’m really pleased to see that.”