Not even a light snow falling throughout the race was going to stop twenty-six four-man drivers from trying to claim the title of Olympic 4-man Champion.  In the first heat alone the track record fell four times.  Coming into the race the track record stood at 55.54 but in the end it was lowered to 55.20 by the German sled of 2002 Olympic 4-man Champion Andre Lange.  Lange along with his crew of Rene Hoppe, Kevin Kuske and Martin Putze are in the lead after the first day of competition.  Lange and his crew had identical pushes of 4.71 to go along with runs of 55.20 and 55.30 for a combined time of 1:50.50.  In second place, .13 seconds behind Lange is the Swiss team of Martin Annen, Thomas Lampartner, Beat Hefti and Cedric Grand.  Annen and his crew have a combined time of 1:50.63 after runs of 55.26 and 55.37.  The Swiss team also had the fastest pushes of the competition with identical times of 4.70.  In third is the team of Alexandre Zoubkov, Filipp Egorov, Alexej Seliverstov and Alexey Voevoda from Russia.  Zoubkov and his crew had runs of 55.22 and 55.45 after pushes of 4.74 and 4.75 for a combined time of 1:50.67. 

In fourth is the Canadian team of Pierre Lueders, Ken Koytk, Morgan Alexander and Lascelles Brown.  The Canadians had pushes of 4.75 and 4.74 to go along with runs of 55.34 and 55.43 for a combined time of 1:50.77.  Fifth is the German team of Rene Spies, Christoph Heyder, Enrico Kuehn and Alexander Metzger.  The German team has a combined time of 1:50.95 after runs of 55.47 and 55.48 before pushes of 4.79 and 4.81.

The top American team sled is that of Steve Holcomb, 2002 Olympic Silver Medalist Bill Schuffenhauer (Salt Lake City, UT), Curt Tomasevicz (Shelby, NE) and Lorenzo Smith III (Kankakee, IL).  Holcomb in his first Olympic Games is sitting in sixth place after the first day just .03 seconds ahead of his teammate Todd Hays and .29 seconds out of a medal.  Holcomb and his crew had a push of 4.77 on run one with a down time of 55.46 and trailed Lange by .26 seconds and stood in sixth.  Run two would see a down time of 55.50 after a push of 4.78 for a two-heat combined time of 1:50.96.

When asked about the race Holcomb replied, “I was pretty happy.  I’m driving well; the pushers were great and the runners were running.  I’ve been running the same set of runners for the last four years.”

Standing in seventh is the team of 2002 Olympic 4-man Silver Medalist Todd Hays (Del Rio, TX), Pavle Jovanovic (Tom’s River, NJ), Steve Mesler (Buffalo, NY) and Brock Kreitzburg (Akron, OH).  The team would start with a push of 4.73 and finish with a time of 55.43 and stood .23 seconds out of first after the first run in fifth place.  Run two would see another push of 4.73 and a down time of 55.56 for a combined time of 1:50.99.  The biggest news had to come when Hays came through the mix zone after his second run.

"Tomorrow will be my last two bobsled runs and you'll see every ounce of energy that I have in this sport," Hays said. "Unfortunately it didn't go as I'd hoped, but fortunately I know there's a lot worse things in life than not finishing the Olympic Games with a medal. I've got to try to do a lot better job for my teammates tomorrow.”

When asked about his medal chances Hays replied, “I’ve seen guys come back from worse.  Brian Shimer, my coach and my idol, did (come back) and took bronze in Salt Lake.  But it’s going to be difficult.”

The teams will be back at the track Saturday, February 25th for the final two runs of the four-heat race. The first run is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. with the final medal run slated to start at 7:20 p.m.  The gold medal will be awarded to the team with the best total combined time for the four heats.