U.S. takes bronze in four-man bobsled as Russia wins medal race at Sochi Games
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia – The United States picked up its final medal in the Sochi Games with a bronze in the four-man bobsled, but it wasn't enough to keep host nation Russia from overwhelmingly winning the overall medal table at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The USA-1 sled, piloted by Steven Holcomb, the defending gold medalist in the 2010 Vancouver Games, began Sunday in fourth place before moving past Germany in the third run. They did just enough to maintain the position in the fourth and final run, finishing with a combined time of 3:40.99, three-hundredths of a second ahead of Russia's second sled. Russia continued its furious medal run in the Games' final days with its top sled winning gold in 3:40.60. Latvia took the silver in 3:40.69.
[Video: U.S. woman bobsledder's rare pair of Olympic medals]
The medal was Russia's 33rd overall and 13th gold of the Sochi Games, both highs among the competing nations. With only the men's gold-medal hockey game to be decided between Canada and Sweden, the U.S. finished second with 28 total medals: nine gold, seven silver and 12 bronze. The nine golds were third behind Russia's 13 and Norway's 11.
Russia had a dominating final two days, winning gold in four-man bobsled and men's snowboard parallel slalom, and sweeping the podium in the men's 50K mass start cross-country skiing event.
Though Holcomb and the USA-1 sled – which also included Curtis Tomasevicz, Steven Langton and Christopher Fogt – didn't repeat their gold-medal performance from four years ago, it was still a successful Olympics for the U.S. bobsled program. Holcomb and Langton won bronze in men's two-man bobsled for the country's first medal in the event in 62 years. The U.S. also won multiple medals for the first time in women's two-man bobsled, with Elana Meyers and Lauryn Williams taking silver and Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans winning bronze.
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