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LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - Jean Prahm and Vonetta Flowers left the season’s second bobsled World Cup competition with silver medals.
They won’t be keeping them. Gold ones are coming their way.
Prahm and Flowers tied Germany’s Sandra Kiriasis and Anja Schneiderheinze in a two-run competition Friday, marking only the second time in the last 24 World Cup races that someone other than Germans stood atop the medal stand at races’ end.
And on both those occasions, the winners have been Prahm and Flowers — rivals on a tense American bobsled roster four years ago, now teammates with big Olympic plans. Both teams finished in 1:56.06; Americans Shauna Rohbock and Valerie Fleming were third, 0.31 seconds back.
“Gold and a bronze medal. Not a bad way to start the season,” said U.S. coach Bill Tavares.
Prahm and Flowers, who ended the Germans’ 20-race run of World Cup wins at St. Moritz last season, were only 0.02 seconds behind Kiriasis and Schneiderheinze after the first heat. The Americans went next to last in the second run, put up a time of 58.16 seconds, then huddled around a television to see the final slide.
“We were hoping it would work out,” Flowers said.
And when the German time was posted, Prahm and Flowers whooped, hugged and thrust arms into the air. They were given the second-place medals in the postrace ceremony. As the host nation, the Americans — who will receive first-place ones later — chose to let the Germans have the winners’ medals on the podium.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see how close we were after the first heat,” said Prahm, who drove her sled within 0.02 seconds of the German sled’s time after the opening run. “That speaks volumes because they are amazing. They have an amazing team and to be anywhere near them, I was blown away.”
The U.S. had four sleds in the field. After Prahm-Flowers and Rohbock-Fleming, the team of Jill Bakken and Amanda Moreley finished eighth, and Sara Sprung and Bethany Hart placed 13th. And depth is creating an interesting race for the two American start positions at the Turin Olympics this February.
“That’s a really a positive thing,” Bakken said, when asked about the depth. “That’s a huge strength.”
Bakken teamed with Flowers for gold at the Salt Lake City Olympics four years ago, then stepped away from the sport for a couple years. When she returned, Flowers and Prahm — known before marriage as Jean Racine — were teammates, and Bakken has tried several different brakemen since.
Four years ago, Prahm and Jen Davidson were the team widely thought to be America’s best bobsled medal hope. But Davidson was dropped from that team when Prahm decided she had a better chance with former heptathlete Gea Johnson — a move that created a soap opera-ish scenario.
Now, with the World Cup standings being what will decide who gets to slide in Turin, there’s intense competition within the American team — yet perhaps not quite the same amount of drama there was in 2002.
“When you have three amazing, great drivers, I feel like every track is an Olympic trials,” Rohbock said. “Every race is so nerve-racking.. ... It’s going to be a continuous fight until the end.”
Prahm and Flowers were sixth at the season’s opening race in Calgary, Alberta — finishing behind the U.S. sleds driven by Rohbock and Bakken. Tavares said he believes each of the American sleds has the potential to medal at the Olympics, and knows that at least one of his top drivers won’t be there.
“We have to go into every race wanting to beat our teammates,” Flowers said. “It’s not fun.”
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
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