(Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
An Okanagan athlete has won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
Summerland’s Justin Kripps earned the medal, alongside London, Ont.’s Alex Kopacz, in the men’s two-man bobsleigh.
In a rare Olympic occurrence, the pair actually tied for the gold medal with the German sled of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis.
🇨🇦 Justin Kripps and Alex Kopacz tie for gold in 2-man bobsleigh with Germany
20 years ago, Canada had the exact same result, a tie for goldhttps://t.co/6Bb3PlqD6A pic.twitter.com/Ru5DFKCzVl— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) February 19, 2018
After two runs on Sunday, the pair entered Monday night’s final two runs in second place, only 0.10 seconds behind Germany’s Nico Walther and Christian Poser.
Another German sled, Johannes Lochner and Christopher Weber, was less than a second behind the Canadians.
After the first run on Monday, which was the third heat overall, Kripps and Kopacz took over first place with a total time of 2:27.58.
Only 0.60 seconds behind them was yet another German sled, this one consisting of Friedrich and Margis, while the other two German teams had fallen to third and fifth.
In the final run of the competition, Friedrich and Margis were able to make up the 0.60 seconds on Kripps and Kopacz, leading to a tie for the gold medal.
Both teams finished the four-race event with total times of 3:16.86.
Kripps, 31, was born in Hawaii but spent much of his childhood in Summerland.
A former varsity track and field athlete at Simon Fraser University, Kripps was drawn to bobsleigh at age 18 because it felt like a mix of track and field and race car driving.
PyeongChang 2018 is his third Winter Olympics after making his debut at Vancouver 2010.
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