06.02 Sochi Bobsled Track is Fast and Furious – US Star Holcomb

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia, February 6 (R-Sport) – The bobsled track for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics is a fiendishly difficult, extremely rapid blast down a Russian mountainside, defending champion Steven Holcomb of the United States said Wednesday.

The world’s longest bobsled, luge and skeleton track at 1.8 kilometers, the Sanki Sliding Center has become even more of a challenge since the last test events three months ago, said Holman, the 2010 four-man bobsled champion.

"It's so much colder so the ice is harder,” he said after training. “It is more slippery, which is kind of weird to say, but there are differences of slickness, it gets more slippery and it is harder to hold the sides.

"You spend 36 runs going down this track (last November) and it is warmer and it is frostier and slower and you have grip. But you come here now and the ice is harder and the slickness makes it challenging. It is definitely faster.”

Holcomb is aiming for double gold in Sochi, defending his four-man title and attempting to become the first American pilot to win the two-man event since Ivan Brown in 1936. He comes to Sochi as World Cup champion in both events this season.

"There's always pressure,” he said. “Everyone expects every run to be perfect and if I'm not winning training there is something wrong. There is a lot of stuff like that, but we just have to remember that the race is what counts."

In the women’s event, the top U.S. medal hope is Elana Meyers. She has been largely second-best to Canada’s Kaillie Humphries this season but says she believes a display of pilot skill could make all the difference.

Meyers predicted it would be “very difficult to be fast” at Sanki, adding: “You’re going to have to work to be the fastest down the hill."

The four-man event kicks off the bobsled competition and has its final runs February 17. The women’s event ends two days later, before the two-man rounds off the Olympic action February 21.