Melbardis wins World Cup 4-man bobsled race

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland (AP) — Latvian pilot Oskars Melbardis drove to the win in a four-man World Cup bobsled race Sunday, his first victory of the season.

Melbardis hadn’t been better than fourth in a World Cup race this season, but he and push athletes Daumants Dreiskens, Arvis Vilkaste and Janis Strenga finished two runs in 2 minutes, 9.52 seconds. Russian pilot Alexander Zubkov finished second, 0.23 seconds back. Maximilian Arndt of Germany took third, 0.45 seconds off Melbardis’ pace.

American sliders struggled Sunday, capping another rough week for a team that was flying to start the season.

Reigning Olympic champion Steven Holcomb and his team of Steve Langton, Curt Tomasevicz and Chris Fogt were seventh in 2:10.29. Holcomb won all three four-man races in North America to start the year, but has posted an average finish of 11.3 in three European events since and is now only fourth in the points standings.

USA-2 pilot Nick Cunningham fared even worse.

Cunningham was third after the first run, then lost control and crashed in the second run. Even though his sled crossed the finish line, Cunningham was disqualified and awarded no points because one of his push athletes, Dallas Robinson, was out of the sled at the time. Robinson fell out of the sled shortly after the crash.

They were the only two American sleds in Sunday’s field. Cory Butner, bidding for an Olympic spot, crashed during training earlier in the week and was held out of the race.