Steve Holcomb just made history. Again.
In 2009 Holcomb became the first American bobsled pilot to win the 4-man event in 50 years. At the 2010 Olympic Games, Holcomb became the first gold medal winning pilot since 1948. And yesterday morning, at the 2012 FIBT World Championships of Bobsled and Skeleton, Steve Holcomb and pushman ‘Super’ Steve Langton became the first Americans to ever win the 2-man bobsled event.
Holcomb and Langton are quickly becoming legendary in the sport of bobsled and already the duo will go down as being among the greatest US athletes to ever have participated in the sport. Holcomb has shown time and time again that he is as wiley a driver and focused a competitor as one will ever meet. Even before this season began, Holcomb was making headlines by winning the US bobsled push championships, entering the US luge open start championships just for fun – and winning, as well as giving many skeleton athletes a start by entering his name into their sport’s start championships (Holcomb has won several skeleton start titles in years past, but withdrew this year at the last moment to focus on the bobsled season).
The season started strong for Holcomb, winning world cup medals in the 2- and 4-man races, but during the middle of the season it appeared that Holcomb, and the team he had carefully constructed, was struggling. For several world cups in a row, there were no medals won by the USA-1 sled. Holcomb decided to withdraw from the last two world cups of the season and return to Lake Placid, home of the 2012 Championship, in order to fine tune and prepare for the big event.
Holcomb and Langton minutes after winning the world 2-man title.
Langton, for his part, is world renowned as one of the most physically gifted, and hardest workers, in the entire world of bobsled. At 6’3″ and 220lbs, Langton defeated every other pusher from every nation on earth to win the inaugural World Push Championship title. There isn’t an athlete that DailyHouse has spoken with that hasn’t marveled at Langton’s physical ability. He is an integral part of not only Holcomb’s two-man team, but of the ‘Night Train’ 4-man team that won the 2010 Olympic gold and will be competing next weekend during the 4-man event.
The combination of tireless practice and superior talent paid off in a huge way for Holcomb and Langton and now their names will be etched in the history books, the first American team to ever win the 2-man bobsled world championship title.
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The rest of the American 2-man squads had a fantastic weekend as well. John Napier and Chris Fogt had an outstanding performance to finish 6th in the USA-2 sled in their best performance of the year. Meanwhile, Nick Cunningham and Dallas Robinson, in their world championship debut, finished 9th.
Full Results 2012 2-Man Bobsled World Championship
