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Saturday, February 21, 1998 Turmoil in bobsledNAGANO, Japan (CP) -- Canada's bobsledders will leave Nagano with a gold medal in the two-man and some bad memories in the four-man.Edmonton's Pierre Lueders won the two-man gold medal but the four-man was filled with controversy. Rival driver Chris Lori, from Windsor, Ont., boycotted some of the four-man training runs. Ken Leblanc of Beaverton, Ont., left Japan early. At the heart of the matter was who should crew Canada I and Canada II. Lori said Lueder's four-man crew -- Dave MacEachern of Charlottetown, Jack Pyc of Calgary and Ricardo Greenidge of Ottawa -- came to him at Christmas and asked to join him. "They said Pierre's a great driver in the two-man . . . really you're the guy that'll take us to a medal in the four-man and we want to push you in the Games at the four-man," Lori said in an interview today with CBC-TV. The crewing issue was never settled, however. At Nagano, Lori said Pyc was told "either you slide with Pierre or you go home." As for Leblanc, unhappy at what was going on, "he basically packed up and went home." When the race was finally run, Canada 1 was made up of Lueders, Greenidge, Pyc, and MacEachern. Lori raced with the Hindle brothers from Calgary -- Ben and Matt -- and Ian Danney of Edmonton. Canada I tied for ninth and Canada II was 11th. "I had a really hard time bringing myelf to race this week . . . it was a very tough thing to do under the circumstances," said Lori, competing in his fourth Olympics. But he tried to put it all in perspective. "Really in the big scheme of things in life, how important is who I get pushing on my team or whether I win a medal or don't win a medal," he said. "Really when you look a it, over top of everything, it's really not that important." |