Sylvan Lake’s Lyndon Rush piloted the Canada 1 two-man bobsled to the World Cup podium for the second straight race by winning a bronze medal in Winterberg, Germany Saturday.
But heavy snow and windy conditions got the best of Rush’s Canada 1 four-man team on Sunday when they placed 13th.
The 32-year-old Rush, who won silver two weeks ago in Whistler, B.C. with Lascelles Brown, teamed up with 30-year-old Jesse Lumsden, of Burlington, Ont., to win the bronze after posting a combined time of 1:51.41 which was just four-tenths of a second behind Beat Hefti and Tomas Lamparter of Switzerland who won gold.
It was the fourth World Cup medal for the Canadian duo since teaming up last year.
“We normally find the Winterberg track really difficult, but our runs worked out really well today,” Rush was quoted on the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton website. It was the fourth two-man and eighth overall World Cup medal of Rush’s career to go along with his Olympic bronze and World Championship silver medal that he won with Lumsden last year in Lake Placid, N.Y.
In the four-man race, Rush was teamed with Ottawa’s Cody Sorensen, Lumsden and Edmonton’s Neville Wright in the Canada 1 sled.
Rush’s two run time of 1:51.33 was just 73 one-hundredths of a second off the leaders in Russia 1.
Canada’s World Cup rookie pilot Justin Kripps drove just shy of his career-best four-man finish when he placed 10th, the best showing for the Canadian men.
“Outside of Kripps, the day was a bit of a disaster really,” said Canadian Bobsleigh team head coach Tom De la Hunty, in a news release. “The snow was blowing all over the place and it was just a disaster for us. We had a good day yesterday (Saturday) though so you have to take the bad with the good.”
The next World Cup events are in La Plagne, France on Saturday and Sunday.