First placed Kaillie Humphries from the USA speeds down the track during the women's monobob Bobsleigh World Cup race in Altenberg, Germany, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (Sebastian Kahnert/dpa via AP)
ALTENBERG, Germany (AP) – Kaillie Humphries won a World Cup women’s monobob race for the 100th medal of her career in major international competition and Canada’s Cynthia Appiah took bronze.
Humphries has won 70 medals in two-woman races in her career; 60 in World Cups, seven at the world championships and three at the Olympics.
She’s won another 11 medals in monobob events – including Olympic gold at Beijing last year – plus 10 more on the North American Cup circuit and nine medals in team competitions.
Humphries competed for Canada until 2019 and won a pair of Olympic gold medals in two-woman bob before switching to the United States in a dispute with Canada’s federation.
Humphries used a blazing second run to finish two heats on Saturday in one minute, 57.92 seconds.
Germany’s Laura Nolte was second in 1:58.47, and Toronto’s Appiah was third in 1:58.86.
Humphries’ winning margin of 0.55 seconds was the largest in a World Cup monobob race this season.
Humphries picked up 225 standings points for the win, which was 15 more than Nolte got for finishing second.
That gave Humphries 1,070 points on the season and 50 more than Nolte in the race for the overall monobob title with three races remaining on the World Cup schedule.
Humphries was 0.15 seconds behind Nolte after the first heat.
But her second-heat time of 58.97 seconds beat Nolte’s time by seven-tenths of a second – a huge margin in a sliding sport.
Appiah ranked third after her first run and maintained her position in the second.
In the two-man race later Saturday, Germany’s Johannes Lochner drove to the win in 1:49.20.
Britain’s Brad Hall was second in 1:49.63, and Germany’s Francesco Friedrich drove to third in 1:50.26.
Calgary pilot Austin Taylor and Toronto’s Shaq Murray-Lawrence were ninth.
Lochner, Hall and Friedrich all have four medals apiece from the five two-man races so far this season.
Lochner leads the two-man standings with 1,067 points, now 31 clear of Friedrich – the margin was just six entering Saturday – and 53 ahead of Hall.
