Teamed with a new brakeman, Sylvan Lake’s Lyndon Rush took second place in the two-man bobsled World Cup event at Whistler on the weekend after several disappointing finishes earlier in the season.
But he and his teammates continued to struggle in the four-man event.
Rush and Lascelles Brown won their first silver medal as a two-man bobsled team with a two-run time of one minutes 45.30 seconds, just four one-hundreds of a second off Steven Holcomb and Steven Langton of the United States who won a third straight World Cup event in 1:45.26.
“Honestly I feel like it’s gold or nothing here and I made a mistake on corner four. It was a pretty costly one,” Rush was quoted in a Canadian Press article.
Rush and Brown were second after their first run, finishing in 52.57 seconds. The Canadians shook up the teams in Whistler and the changes concerned Rush, who usually races with Jesse Lumsden.
“I don’t really like it to be honest with you because these guys are my four-man team. I don’t like racing against them but I like to see the Canadian program do well,” Rush was quoted. “It’s the head coach’s call and I have to fall in line.”
Rush’s medal was his eighth on the World Cup circuit. Brown won an Olympic silver medal with Pierre Lueders in 2006, followed by a bronze with Rush’s four-man team in 2010. The 38-year-old slid for Monaco the last two seasons, but is back wearing Canadian colours again.
Rush and CFL star Jesse Lumsden started the season placing seventh in Lake Placid on Nov. 9. Then at Park City on Nov. 16, Rush was teamed with Brown. They crashed in the second run after placing second in the initial slide and ended the day in 20th place.
Rush, Calgary’s Lascelles Brown, Edmonton’s Neville Wright and Jesse Lumsden of Burlington, Ont., team up in the Canada 1 sled to finish eighth at 1:44.24 in the four-man event at Whistler.
Canadian coach Tom De La Hunty has been made switches to the four-man team in each race so far this season.
Rush and his team placed a disappointing 12th in four-man in Park City and sixth in Lake Placid. At Park City his teammates were Cody Sorenson, Jesse Lumsden and Neville Wright. Then at Lake Placid Sorensen, Lascelles Brown and Wright were his teammates.