Bromley picks up World Cup bronze

Kristan Bromley earned an impressive bronze medal for Great Britain at the first bob skeleton World Cup event of the season in the United States.

A strong second run from Bromley, the 2008 world champion, lifted the 37-year-old from fifth to third.

Latvia's Martins Dukurs won gold ahead of Sandro Stielicke of Germany, while fellow Brits Andy Wood and Adam Pengilly finished outside the top 20.

GB's Shelley Rudman finished fourth in the women's race later on Thursday.

Amy Williams, silver medallist at last season's World Championships, finished sixth overall, while Donna Creighton came 19th.

The women's event at Utah Olympic Park was cut to a single heat - with Germany's Anja Huber coming out on top - as snow affected the timing mechanism after that.

Huber recorded a time of 51.22 seconds, ahead of Canadians Amy Gough and Mellisa Hollingsworth, with Rudman completing the run in 52.48 sec.

Rudman took home Britain's only medal of the last Winter Olympics when she won silver in the women's skeleton in 2006, and the team are considered one of GB's stronger medal hopes for Vancouver 2010.

In the men's event, Wood and Pengilly's finishes of 23rd and 24th respectively meant they had just one run at the Park City track.

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Wood recorded a time of 51 seconds exactly, fractionally ahead of Pengilly, who posted a time of 51.11.

Sheffield-based Bromley's combined time over his two runs was one minute 40.37 seconds, a tenth of a second behind Stielicke, while Dukurs won in a time of 1:39.75.

"It was a great start for Kristan, I was delighted. It couldn't have been better," Bryn Vale, president of British Skeleton, told BBC Radio 5 live.

"We are delivering. We deliver in the big events and our programme is focused entirely on that."

In bobsleigh, current world champions, Britain's Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke, kicked off their Winter Olympic season on Friday with a seventh place finish at Park City, 0.56 seconds behind winners Cathleen Martini and Romy Logsch from Germany.

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