Contact: Amanda Bird, USABS Marketing & Communications Director
(518) 354-2250, amanda.bird@usabs.com
Kristen Gowdy, USABS Media and Marketing Assistant, (719) 722-0522, kristen.gowdy@usabs.com
Uhlaender and Daly return to home ice to win third USA Skeleton National Team Trials race
Photos: Molly Choma
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (October 16, 2017)- Katie Uhlaender (Breckenridge, Colo.) and John Daly (Smithtown, N.Y.) returned to home ice to take the first of two Lake Placid USA Skeleton National Team Trials races. The team completed its first two races in Calgary, Canada last week, where Uhlaender and Kendall Wesenberg (Modesto, Calif.) won a competition apiece on the women’s side and Greg West (Springfield, Mo.) took both men’s races.
“It’s just great to have all of these kids come out and compete at this level day in and day out,” said Tuffy Latour, USA Skeleton head coach. “Going into the season, we’re going to have a strong World Cup and Intercontinental Cup team. This has always been the dream of this coaching staff, to have 35 to 40 athletes in this program who can all battle it out for these positions on these tours.”
Skeleton team trials consists of four races; two in Calgary and two in Lake Placid. The top three ranked women’s and men’s athletes after the four race series will be named to the World Cup team, which will be announced on Wednesday morning.
Daly won his first team trials race of the season, beating out 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Matt Antoine (Prairie du Chien, Wis.) by 0.05 seconds. Daly threw down the fastest run of the first heat, 55.27 seconds, to establish a commanding lead that would carry him to victory despite Antoine’s final run time of 55.74, the best of the second heat. West took third with a 1:51.52 combined time.
“It feels good to be back, but it’s different,” Daly said. “It’s not fully there yet; there’s still glimmers of the old John Daly, like the first run, and then the rookie mistakes come back out the second run. It feels good to be back, and you can’t make mistakes with these guys. Kyle Brown and Greg West, they are up-and-coming superstars, they are going to be studs. Then, as always, you can’t make mistakes in front of an Olympic bronze medalist or he’s going to sneak up on you, so it was really tight and really good. I’m actually super impressed with how good these kids have become.”
Kyle Brown (Concord, N.H.) recorded his third top-four finish of this year’s team trials, finishing just 00.05 off West’s pace. Brown’s 1:51.57 combined time topped Mike Rogals (Orwell, Vt.) and Alex Ivanov (Carlisle, Mass.), who took fifth and sixth, respectively.
West swept both Calgary races to lead trials by 69 points coming into Lake Placid. Daly and Antoine were the second and third ranked men’s competitors, respectively, followed by Brown in fourth. Nathan Crumpton (Park City, Utah) and Rogals were tied for fifth. Crumpton did not compete today due to a back injury suffered before the Calgary races.
Tonight was Uhlaender’s second win of trials. She was first and second in Calgary, and with today’s win, Uhlaender is one race away from solidifying her 13th national team nomination.
Uhlaender experimented with a line through corner 10 and was 0.24 seconds off the pace set by Wesenberg in run one. She rallied back with the fastest time in the second heat, 57.41 seconds, to overtake Wesenberg for the win with a combined time of 1:54.49.
“I don’t know what it is about curve 10 in the early season, but it has it’s own character,” Uhlaender said. “It’s always interesting every early season to try to figure it out. In the second run I just went back to what I know. It’s been a hard week returning to Lake Placid. I changed up my training program, and I’m still figuring things out.”
Annie O’Shea (Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.) was just one-hundredth of a second behind Uhlaender in the first heat with a time of 57.09 seconds, and finished her day in second place after posting a run of 57.65 for a total of 1:54.74.
Wesenberg finished third with an aggregate time of 1:54.75 to put herself in World Cup contention. She was 21 points ahead of Uhlaender after the first two races in Calgary.
Savannah Graybill (Denver, Pa.), who entered tonight ranked third in trials points, finished fourth in 1:55.01. Gracie Clapp-Taylor (Saint Johns, Fla.) was fifth in 1:55.24, and Veronica Day (Vienna, Va.) finished in 1:55.29 for sixth place.
USA Skeleton National Team Trials continue tomorrow at 6 p.m. ET, and the race will be streamed live at www.usabs.com. The national team will be announced on Wednesday morning.
For media inquiries, please contact Amanda Bird, USABS Marketing & Communications Director, at amanda.bird@usabs.com, or at (518) 354-2250.
Women
1. Katie Uhlaender 1:54.49; (57.08, 57.41);
2. Annie O’Shea 1:54.74 (57.09, 57.65);
3. Kendall Wesenberg 1:54.75 (56.84, 57.91);
4. Savannah Graybill 1:55.01 (57.33, 57.68);
5. Gracie Clapp-Taylor 1:55.24 (57.49, 57.75);
6. Veronica Day 1:55.29 (57.52, 57.77);
7. Megan Henry 1:55.42 (57.56, 57.86);
8. Samantha Culiver 1:55.44 (57.35, 58.09);
9. Kellie Delka 1:55.60 (57.74, 57.86);
10. Morgan Tracey 1:56.49 (57.91, 58.58);
11. Kelly Curtis 1:57.00 (58.45, 58.55);
12. Michelle Toukan 1:57.32 (58.49, 58.83);
13. Megan Dovell 1:57.53 (58.36, 59.17);
14. Leslie Stratton 1:57.69 (58.81, 58.88);
15. Kristen Hurley 1:57.71 (58.33, 59.38);
16. Mystique Ro 1:59.52 (59.95, 59.57);
Men
1. John Daly 1:51.13 (55.27, 55.86);
2. Matt Antoine 1:51.18 (55.44, 55.74);
3. Greg West 1:51.52 (55.46, 56.06);
4. Kyle Brown 1:51.57 (55.58, 55.99);
5. Mike Rogals 1:52.12 (55.74, 56.38);
6. Alex Ivanov 1:52.55 (56.14, 56.41);
7. Austin McCrary 1:52.99 (56.26, 56.73);
8. Austin Florian 1:53.14 (56.15, 56.99);
9. Mike Brandt 1:53.16 (56.20, 56.96);
10. Jake Miter 1:53.27 (56.27, 57.00);
11. Steve Garbett 1:53.35 (56.84, 56.51);
12. Kyle Tress 1:53.56 (56.39, 57.17);
13. Jimmy Nguyen 1:54.42 (57.05, 57.37);
14. Allen Blackwell 1:54.58 (57.03, 57.55);
15. Max Delance 1:54.90 (57.00, 57.90);
16. Andrew Blaser 1:55.57 (57.67, 57.90);
Dakarai Kongela (DNS)
Nathan Crumpton (DNS)
About USA Bobsled & Skeleton
USA Bobsled & Skeleton (USABS), based in Lake Placid, N.Y., is the national governing body for the sports of bobsled and skeleton in the United States. USABS would like to thank its sponsors, suppliers and contributors for their support: BMW of North America, Under Armour, Kampgrounds of America, Thorne Research, Boomerang Carnets, Hudl, Tesa Tape, PVS International, Ferris Mfg. Corp, Stress Engineering, Machintek, deBotech and Carpenter. For more information, please visit the USABS website at www.usabs.com.
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