Humphries/Moyse set for gold after more bob spills

Canadian tandem Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse closed in on women's bobsleigh gold Wednesday after keeping Erin Pac and Elana Meyers of USA 2 at arm's length in heat three of four.

The Canadians timed an overall 2min 39.05sec for a substantial 0.57sec lead over their American rivals with Helen Upperton and Shelly-Ann Brown of Canada third at 0.91sec.

But once again the interest focused on potentially serious injury at the Whistler Sliding Centre as British medal hopefuls Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke overturned in the women's event.

Pilot Minichiello had her head jammed between the ice and her sleigh, yet managed to walk away from the crash with just a bruised shoulder.

Britain's two-man bobsleigh team of John Jackson and Dan Money also crashed during heats.

"I'm absolutely devastated," was a furious Minichiello's reaction.

"It's everything we worked for and believed in. It's frustrating. This is the biggest stage in the world, but we went for it.

"I knew we had to absolutely push it. I thought it was still possible, but it was right on the edge and I lost it. At the flippin' Olympics," she said following an error exiting curve 12.

"We pushed it, we just pushed it a little too much. We were a little bit too high on 11. A crash is a crash."

Kelly Thomas, brakeman for Britain 2, had to follow after watching Minichiello's mishap and explained: "It's really hard to follow a crash. When it's a teammate it's even harder.

"We could see they were OK. As long as we knew they were OK, we knew we had to just focus on our run."

The British drama came on a day which saw the Dutch men's four-man squad withdraw after pilot Edwin van Calker admitted his confidence was shot, a decision his coach warned would open him to ridicule.

Liechtenstein also pulled out, as had Australia and Switzerland before them amid lingering fears over the track where Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed on a pre-Games luge training run.

The greater weight and consequent speed of the men's four-man vehicles, albeit on a course which has been modified to allay safety fears, has wreaked havoc with the event.