PARK CITY — In National Championships that don't matter much on the world stage of Olympic sliding sports, the U.S. skeleton team made an international statement by breaking former Utah Olympic Park track records left and right.
Meanwhile, the women's bobsled team used the Nationals to tune up for the upcoming World Championships in Calgary.
The cold, clear morning conditions were right for speed when the 2001 U.S. Skeleton National Championships began at Utah Olympic Park Sunday.
On the women's side, Tricia Stumpf defended her national title by eclipsing the former track record twice and became the first woman to break the 51-second mark on Utah ice.
Her times, 50.76 and 50.74, put her combined total 1.14 seconds ahead of Colleen Rush and 1.60 seconds in front of Lea Ann Parsley.
Stumpf was encouraged her record came on the track that will house the 2002 Games and said Europeans should take note.
"Me and Lea Ann (Parsley) are third and fourth in (world rankings), and we're racing on their tracks," she said. During the 2002 Olympics, "They're coming to our house."
The men's team went under the old track record of 49.60 seconds seven times. At the end of the day Lincoln Dewitt held the mark at 49.11. His combined time for two races was 1:38.48, a half-second ahead of Brady Canfield, who edged third-place finisher Chris Soule by .02 seconds.
All of the top three broke the former track record on each of their two runs, and racers praised Mother Nature and track workers for keeping the ice super quick.
"We knew the record was going down today," said Dewitt, currently ranked third in the world. "It was going to fall, it was just a matter of who was going to get it."
Soule, who won the U.S. Nationals here last year, said he was as impressed with Dewitt as he was with the conditions.
"We go back and forth," Soule said of Dewitt. "He won the nationals last year, and I won the year before, but he's really stepped up a notch. He's driving really well, and he's stepped up his pushes."
The day's biggest skeleton surprise came from 37-year-old Canfield, who finished 29th overall in World Cup standings last year.
"I'm extremely happy," a breathless Canfield said of his second place finish. "This is the best I've done on this track. This is the best I've done ever."
Canfield's surprise pushed current world No. 1 Jim Shea into fourth place.
For the women's bobsled team, Sunday's U.S. Nationals were more like an upscale training session than real competition. Current World Cup points leader Jean Racine gave her normal breaker, Jen Davidson, the week off and used an alternate partner.
"I pretty much treated this like a practice," Racine said. "I really just want to get comfortable with this track."
Racine finished second behind new national champion Bonnie Warner, who put up a time of 139.67 seconds.
"Any time you have race ice, it's great to be able to get out and have some good runs," Warner said.
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