Brad Hall steers Britain's bobsleigh boys to historic European gold medal

22 January 2023 , 23:08

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Greg Cackett, Taylor Lawrence, Brad Hall and Arran Gulliver have won three of last four World Cup races (Image: Viesturs Lacis Rekords)

Brad Hall and his fabulous bobsleigh boys won Britain’s first ever European title in Altenberg yesterday.

Greg Cackett, Arran Gulliver and Taylor Lawrence combined with Hall to beat all three German Olympic medalists on their home ice.

Gold for the quartet came days after they boldly predicted they would win the world title in St Moritz next month.

Hall said: “It’s an amazing feeling, probably the highlight of all of our careers.

“We’ve done something no British team has ever done before and that feels pretty special. We’ve made history and no one can take that away from us.”

Great Britain's bobsleigh boys aim to overturn odds rather than sled this time

Britain’s previous best was silver for John Jackson, Stu Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon in 2014.

(Viesturs Lacis Rekords)

Nine years on the Brits clocked a combined time of 1 minute 49.32 seconds to beat double Olympic gold medalist and six-time European Champion Francesco Friedrich by nine hundredths of a second.

Joint second fastest starters in run one (5.16 seconds), they powered to a blistering 5.10sec start on their second go and Hall brought it home with time to spare.

“We knew we could win here after doing it last week,” he said. “But to beat the Germans two weeks running at a track where they always dominate is incredible, really.”

(Viesturs Lacis Rekords)

Hall’s team has now won three of the last four World Cup races and move joint top of the four-man world rankings.

“We’ll really enjoy this one, maybe pizza and a glass of champagne,” he said. “But our focus is already on the World Champs. We go to Moritz in great form and want to keep the good feeling going.”

Alex Spink