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Holcomb Sweeps Gold Medals
By Amanda Bird // February 11, 2007
Cesana, Italy—Overall World Cup leader Steven Holcomb (Park City, Utah) dominated the four-man World Cup competition today in Cesana, Italy, sweeping the medals on the 2006 Olympic track. Four-man U.S. Champion Grayson Fertig (Oxford, Conn.) finished his World Cup debut in thirteenth.
“It feels great to come off two fourth place finishes and one was only two-hundredths of a second from the medals at World Championships for a sweep of the medals in Cesana,” Holcomb said. “Coming back to Italy and winning by twenty-eight hundredths shows that we’re still out there and still fighting.”
Piloting his sled to a dominant victory, Holcomb had the two fastest runs of the day, a 55.32 and 56.46, for a combined time of 1:51.78 to win his third consecutive gold medal in four-man World Cup competition.
“Holcomb had a few driving errors during the two-man race, and he was still fast, which was good to see,” U.S. bobsled head coach Brian Shimer said. “I knew that if he was able to straighten those problems out in the four-man, he would do well. Steve knows he can do it now. His confidence is gaining every week.”
Teamed with one of the strongest push crews in the world, Pavle Jovanovic (Tom’s River, N.J.), Steve Mesler (Calgary, Alberta) and Brock Kreitzburg (Akron, Ohio), Holcomb had the second best pushes in both heats, a 4.79 and 4.76, respectively.
“We had five push athletes training this week for USA1, and they all came away with a gold medal because Curt Tomasevicz helped our guys by pushing in the two-man event yesterday,” Shimer said. “That’s just incredible.”
Twenty-eight hundred seconds behind was four-man World Cup leader Evgeni Popov from Russia. Finishing with runs of 55.52 and 56.54 for a total time of 1:52.06, Popov claimed the silver and maintained his overall lead in four-man standings with 540 points.
Having won three gold medals in the last three four-man events, Holcomb is edging closer to Popov with 480 points. Holcomb continues to extend his lead in overall combined standings with 1020 points, and has won all events held on Italian tracks this season, having swept both Cortina and Cesana.
“It hasn’t hit me yet that we swept the medals in Italy,” Holcomb said. “We’re four for four. Really, I don’t think I realize it yet.”
“I just beat the Olympic Champion only one year later,” Holcomb said. “I’m just realizing that now. It’s still hard to grasp, still unbelievable.”
Fertig teamed with Jesse Beckom III (Winston-Salem, N.C.), Tim O’Mara (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Theron Johnson (Wheaton, Md.) for runs of 56.25 and 57.50 for a combined time of 1:53.75, finishing in thirteenth.
The U.S. bobsled and skeleton teams won six medals on the 2006 Olympic tack at the Cesana World Cup. Holcomb swept the gold in both the four and two-man bobsled events, Shauna Rohbock claimed silver in women’s bobsled, Zach Lund and Eric Bernotas took gold and silver, respectively, in men’s skeleton, and Noelle Pikus-Pace claimed bronze.
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