USA-1 Currently Leads Field In Women’s Bobsled February 19, 2014

Elana Meyers and Lauryn Williams of the U.S.A. currently lead the field in women’s bobsled after two of four runs.  The third and fourth runs will commence tomorrow (Wed., Feb. 19).  But that is only part of the story.  The other part of the story what happened to their sled during a training run.  Reportedly, Williams pulled the brakes too late, causing the sled to crash into a wall, sustaining serious damage, as in, damage-too-serious-for-the-sled-to-be-serviceable-type of damage.  One can see this damage in the photo below.

There is no way that a sled can be aerodynamically viable for Olympic competition after sustaining such damage!

(Here is the source for the above photo.)

So, how do we explain Meyers’ and Williams’ two solid runs?  Leave it to the support staff of the U.S. Bobsled Team to save the day.  They went down to the USA House of the Olympic village, where they just so happened to have a spare sled on display.

It also just so happens that they sneaked into the place to commandeer this spare sled with nobody noticing, because most people were glued to the thrilling hockey game between the United States and Russia — the same competitive game where the Americans ended up beating the Russians on the latter’s home ice in a shoot-out!

This writer visualizes but one scenario when the folks at NBC reported how the U.S. Bobsled team staff managed to sneak in and smuggle out the sled:  the “Minnie The Moocher” scene from “Blue Brothers”!

All kidding aside, though, the team mechanics worked long into the night, end even “In[to] The Wee Small Hours of the Morning” to transfer key, undamaged parts from the broken sled to the spare, unblemished one.  It obviously worked, given that these two ladies are poised to win the gold medal in their sport for Team USA, which would be the first time for this feat since the sport’s Olympic debut for women in 2002 at Salt Lake.  Go Team USA!

Epilogue, Feb. 19, 2014:  Meyers and Williams ended up winning the Silver medal at these Winter Olympic Games at Sochi, while their teammates Jamie Gruebel and Aja Evans won the Bronze.  Winning two out of three medals in Bobsled is always awesome!  Moreover, Williams becomes one of the select few athletes to win both medals in the Summer and Winter Olympics.  Indeed, one can count on a single hand how many athletes have achieved that rare feat.  Go Team USA!