Zubkov wins bobsleigh gold sweep

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) laughs with Russia’s gold medallist bobsleigh athlete Alexander Zubkov. (Reuters)DPA/Krasnaya Polyana, Russia Russian Alexander Zubkov showed it was the right decision for him to come out of retirement as he completed his sweep of the bobsleigh gold medals yesterday by winning the four-man Olympic title. After winning the two-man bobsleigh gold on Monday, Zubkov teamed up with Alexey Negodaylo, Dmitry Trunenkov and Alexey Voevoda to capture four-man gold with a combined time of 3 minutes 40.69 seconds with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in the finish area of the Sanki Sliding Centre. “We won and we proved to everybody that we are the best, that is the most important. I don’t have any emotions right now, honestly. I used them all up in the race,” said Zubkov, who picked up his fourth medal along with four-man silver in 2006 and two-man bronze in 2010. Zubkov originally retired after the Vancouver Games. He decided to come back and try to win the gold medals on his home ice. The question now is if Zubkov, who turns 40 in August will retire for good. One reason stopping him may be the 2015 bobsleigh world championship, which will take place on the same track near Sochi. The Latvian quartet of Oskars Melbardis, Daumants Dreiskens, Arvis Vilkaste and Janis Strenga finished nine-hundredths of a second behind Zubkov’s sled for the silver medal - Latvia’s first Olympic medal in bobsleigh. “I feel very good. I’m very glad. This medal means a lot for me. This season was very difficult. It was a really tough competition,” said Melbardis, who won four-man world championship bronze in 2009. “We expected our team to win third place but this result is better.  For Latvia this is a huge medal to win,” Latvian Olympic Committee President Vilnis Baltins said. The 2010 Olympic champion Steven Holcomb piloted his United States bobsleigh with Curtis Tomasevicz, Steven Langton and Christopher Fogt to the bronze medal, 0.39 seconds behind the gold medallists. “We came back to win, but the Russians are fast. I made too many mistakes and my injury kind of held me back, but I’m happy to walk away with a medal,” said Holcomb, who was dealing with a calf injury suffered in the build-up to his bronze in two-man competition Russia’s second quartet with Alexander Kasjanov finished fourth, three-hundredths behind the Americans. The 2013 world and European champion Maximilian Arndt of Germany dropped from third after two heats to sixth on a sled that included 2010 silver medallists Alexander Roediger and Martin Putze. “The others were just too strong for us. We messed up. Nobody else is to blame. We just didn’t compete with our heads. It’s a shame it went so bad here at the Olympics of all places,” said Arndt.