2 from 4: Germany’s Andre Lange halfway to 4th Olympic gold medal in bobsled

Germany’s Lange leads Olympic two-man

WHISTLER, British Columbia — This beastly track might be tamed yet.

If someone’s going to do it, Andre Lange is the man.

Germany’s ultimate driving machine, Lange was leading Saturday at the midway point of the men’s two-man bobsled competition, leaving him two trips down the treacherous Whistler Sliding Center track from winning his fourth Olympic gold medal in four races.

The first night of bobsled competition included four crashes — one involving Canada’s top team — and a few more heart-skipping moments as drivers struggled to maneuver safely through the menacing 16-curve maze of banking rights and lefts at speeds over 90 mph.

The world’s fastest track can rear up and bite even the best drivers.

Lange is biting back.

He finished his two heats in 1 minute, 43.31 seconds. Germany-2, piloted by Thomas Florschuetz (1:43.42) is in second, and Russia-1, with Alexsandr Zubkov (1:43.81) at the controls is third.

American Steve Holcomb is fourth, a remarkable achievement after nearly crashing in his first run. After getting a nice push courtesy of brakeman Curt Tomasevicz, USA-1 banged into several walls and skidded sideways, but Holcomb’s driving skills kept his $60,000 loaner from flipping.

Three sleds crashed in the first heat as crews from Liechtenstein, Britain and Australia all toppled. The accident involving Great Britain-1 was the scariest.

Driver John Jackson lost control in the 11th curve, tumbling the sled and losing brakeman Dan Money in the process. Money slid behind his ride while Jackson crawled into the nose of his sled and held on until it came to a stop near the finish line.

Jackson emerged from the cockpit and peeled off his bodysuit to reveal two nasty scrapes under his shoulder blades, flesh wounds caused by being gouged by Money’s spiked shoes and being dragged along the ice on his back. He looked as if he been attacked by a grizzly bear.

In the second heat, Canada’s Lyndon Rush, who has had more practice on this course than anyone in the field, couldn’t get Canada-1 through the track’s notorious “50-50″ curve, a nasty section nicknamed by Holcomb because of the odds of escaping it without wrecking.

Both Rush and brakeman Lascelles Brown both walked away uninjured, but their crash underscored the track’s technical difficulty.

If the Canadians can crash, anything is possible.

Lange, though, rarely makes a mistake.

After sweeping gold in both two- and four-man in Italy four years ago, the 36-year-old moved himself into the conversation as the greatest driver in Germany’s incomparable sliding history. Nobody this side of NASCAR’s Jimmie Johnson handles a vehicle like this guy.

He cuts corners on a dime, powers through curves with ease and accelerates down straightaways like few other racers on earth.

It doesn’t hurt that Lange has perhaps the world’s best pushman, Kevin Kuske, on board. A 6-foot-5, 255-pound physical freak, Kuske has been Lange’s passenger in all three of his gold-medal wins. With a win in here, Lange and Kuske, who also won gold together in four-man at Salt Lake, would become the most decorated tandem in Olympic history. They only trail Germany’s Bernhard Germeshausen, a winner of three golds and one silver.

The field in two-man lost some of its depth before the first sled left the start as three teams were dropped from the competition.

Beat Hefti, the reigning World Cup champion and gold-medal favorite, had to withdraw after sustaining a concussion in a crash. Hefti flipped Swiss-1 on Wednesday night, when there were eight crashes as drivers struggled to find their way safely down an unforgiving track.

It remains unclear if Hefti, a bronze medalist in two-man in 2006 as Martin Annen’s brakeman, will participate in the four-man event next week as a pusher for Ivo Rueegg.

The Swiss lost a second sled as Daniel Schmid withdrew “for safety reasons” from both sledding events after two crashes in practice. Latvia’s Janis Minins, who won a four-man World Cup race in Whistler last year, pulled out after having an emergency appendectomy on Feb. 12. He’s hoping to get back for next week’s four-man.