GB miss chance to bag farewell medal in Sochi
TEAM GB pilot John Jackson hopes his four-man bobsleigh team did the nation proud yesterday, despite narrowly missing out on a medal as the curtain came down on the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Jackson’s crew finished fifth following yesterday’s fourth and final run, an agonising 0.11 seconds off a bronze medal, as Britain paid the price for a slow start on Saturday which left them playing catch up on the leaders from an initial 10th place.
Their result meant Team GB failed to add to the gold, silver and two bronze medals already bagged which represent their equal best performance at a Winter Games, yet Jackson, 36, remained upbeat.
“I think we’ve done Great Britain proud,” said Jackson, also a member of the Royal Navy.
“We’re close, but I don’t think we’re disappointed. We’ve put in a good result. We were up there with the fastest starters in the world and we’ve had four runs that are within five hundredths of each other, so we were consistent, it just wasn’t quite enough.”
Britain’s second team, driven by Lamin Deen, placed 19th with hosts Russia taking gold ahead of Latvia and United States.
Skier Andrew Musgrave, competing in his second Olympics, placed 53rd in the 50km mass start cross country race, finishing more than 10 minutes behind Russian winner Alexander Legkov after going down with a fever overnight.
The final gold medal of the Games, before a spectacular closing ceremony, was won by Canada who beat Sweden 3-0 in the men’s ice hockey final.