Galliker takes silver in Italian bob event
Outsider Martin Galliker of Switzerland has taken the silver medal in the four-man event of the European bobsleigh championship in Cesana, Italy.
Galliker achieved the best result of his career on Sunday behind Janis Minins of Latvia and ahead of Germany's André Lange.
The Swiss was first down the 2006 Olympic track when the race started and the fast, colder ice offered a clear advantage, with Galliker just one hundredth of a second off the track record in 54.81 seconds.
His team – Switzerland 2 - was the final sled of the race, but he lost the lead in the upper part of the track and drifted to second with a 55.42 seconds run for a total time of one minute 50.23 seconds – .17 of a second behind the winner.
The Swiss world champion, Ivo Rüegg, finished sixth.
The bobsleigh tour continues next week in the Swiss alpine resort of St Moritz, where the world's first bobsleigh club was founded in 1897.
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