Tough sledding for Lolo in Sochi
SOCHI, Russia — Lolo Jones, Olympic poster person, is a veteran hurdler and a neophyte bobsledder. She came to the Winter Games for the same reason she went to Beijing and London — to win an Olympic medal.
Jones was paired with Jazmine Fenlator of Wayne, N.J. in USA-3 — the third-best sled — but after the first two runs of the Olympic bobsled competition at Sanki Sliding Centre Tuesday night, it’s all but certain that Jones’ medal hunt will have to continue in Brazil in 2016.
Despite a steady drizzle in the mountains east of here, it was a splendid night for USA-1 and USA-2, which are sitting in first and third place after the two runs, but not so much for Fenlator and Jones. Their two-run time of one minute, 56.73 seconds puts them in 11th place, with two runs still to go.
Elana Meyers and her pusher, Lauryn Williams — a gold-medal sprinter — led all competitors with a clocking of 1:54.89. Kaillie Humphries piloted Canada’s top sled to second place, and Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans of the U.S. are third, 0.56 seconds behind their teammates.
“Energy-wise, work-wise, it's kind of what I expected,” said Jones, who placed fourth in the 100-meter hurdle final in London, four years after a crash at the next-to-last hurdle wrecked her anticipated victory in Beijing. “I knew we were going to have to fight. It was going to be a difficult four runs, so I have prepared myself for it.”
Said Fenlator, “I have raced against all of these women, I have beaten all of these women. I’ve beaten them in training and in races, I’ve pushed all these women. The difference is calming yourself down, and that’s something I’ve been working on all season.
“I’m still learning, which I would prefer not to have happen at an Olympic Games and I won’t give up the fight.”
Humphries, the defending gold medalist, has been bumper-to-bumper with Meyers’ USA-1 throughout the World Cup season, and the rivalry is now playing out over the 17 turns of the Olympic chute.
Meyers crashed her sleek BMW-designed sled in one of her early training runs, but Tuesday night she was clearly flourishing with the powerful push of Williams, a member of the 4x100 gold-medal winning relay team in London. If Williams were to win a gold here, she would become the first woman to win gold in both Winter and Summer Games. Eddie Eagan won gold in boxing in 1920 in Antwerp, then picked up another gold in four-man bobsled in Lake Placid in 1932.