Musgrave angry over ‘ridiculous’ shortening of race
ANDREW MUSGRAVE was left cursing the weather and officials after his best Olympic chance was dealt a blow.
The four-time Olympian was targeting the gruelling 50km cross country race as his key event in Beijing, believing he was in the shape to put a challenge to the dominant Nordic nations.
But he was left fuming after being told the windy conditions and frigid temperate – it was - 17 celsius and even colder with wind chill – meant the showpiece race would be shortened to just 30km.
“I thought it was a ridiculous decision,” he said. “If it’s warm enough to race then I don’t see why doing an hour-and-aquarter or 30km, compared to t wo hours in the 50km, makes it any better.
“It’s still the same temperature, it’s still the same wind, so I thought it was an absolutely stupid call.
“While you’re racing you keep warm and it’s not too bad. You’re going so hard that it’s easy to keep warm. Standing talking to you after the race, on the other hand, is pretty chilly!
“I haven’t got a clue why they did it. To be honest, I don’t know what they were thinking. Seems a little bit strange to me.”
Musgrave still finished 12th, despite the shortened race, his second- best individual performance as Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov won gold nearly t wo minutes ahead.
“I’m pretty disappointed,” added Musgrave, who finished fourth in the 50km event at the World Championships in Finland five years ago.
“It wasn’t what I came here to do and wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for.
“I struggled a wee bit at altitude before, but this year we’ve done a lot of training at
altitude, preparations for the Games have gone really good.
“I’ve to go home and evaluate what we’ve done wrong, if we’ve done anything right, and learn from the experience and move on.”
Musgrave finished seventh in the skiathlon in PyeongChang before a virus derailed his hopes in subsequent events and now 31 he is yet to decide whether he will continue to Milano Cortina in four years.
“I still really enjoy skiing and I think I can improve as a skier,” he said. “I feel like I can be a lot better than I’ve been in these Games. So I’d like to keep going, but we’ll see what happens.
“I don’t really what what’s gone wrong. I’ll go home and take a few weeks to evaluate what’s gone wrong, but right this moment I’m not really too sure.”
In other action yesterday, Brad Hall steered his four-man Great Britain bobsleigh team within 0.31 seconds of an Olympic medal after the first t wo runs of the competition at Yanqing Sliding Centre.
Hall, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleeson and Taylor Lawrence sit in sixth position at the halfway stage, with t wo German crews and Canada’s Justin Kripps making up the medal positions ahead of the event’s conclusion which was overnight ( UK time).
It was an impressive response from Hall, a three- time four- man World Cup medallist this season, after overturning his sled in the t wo- man competition last Tuesday.
“We’re feeling pretty good,” said Hall, who was forced to essentially self- fund his route to the Games after UK Sport funding for the bobsleigh programme was ended after the Pyeongchang Games.
But while the £ 6.5 million British skeleton programme has floundered, Hall has worked hard to put his team in contention for what would be a first four-man medal since John Jackson was awarded retrospective bronze from Sochi in 2014.
“There were a couple of mistakes on the first run but it wasn’t a bad performance. I’m quite content with sixth place,” added Hall.
“The Germans have got three sleds, three times the amount of runs to test everything and find the best way down the track, and make sure the equipment works. We’re against it, we’ve got less resources to pull upon, so we’ve just gone with what we know and we’ll see how it turns out.”
In the two-woman bobsleigh, Team GB’s pilot Mica McNeill and Montell Douglas finished 17th after which Douglas announced her retirement at the age of 36.
Also retiring is Gus Kenworthy, who came eighth in the men’s halfpipe final after switching from USA to compete for Team GB.