Ben Sandford ( born March 12, 1979 , Rotorua , North Island) is a New Zealand skeleton player who has been playing for the New Zealand national team since 2002. Participant of the three Winter Olympic Games, bronze medalist of the World Cup, winner of several stages of the World Cups, Europe and America.
 Ben sandford | |
|---|---|
| Citizenship |  New Zealand |
| Date of Birth | March 12, 1979 (40 years old) |
| Place of Birth | Rotorua , North Island |
| Growth | 199 cm |
| Weight | 95 kg |
| Career | |
| In the national team | since 2002 |
| Status | competes |
| Last updated: March 27, 2012 | |
Biography
Ben Sandford was born March 12, 1979 in the city of Rotorua , North Island. After graduation, he entered Queen Victoria University , where he played squash for the local student team. In 2002, they went to Austria for the International University Squash Championship, and there was a luge and bobsled track nearby, so Sandford, taking this opportunity, decided to try himself in a skeleton, especially since his uncle Bruce was also a skeleton and got in this form sports good results.
He made his debut for the national team in November at the America's Cup stage, taking eighteenth place, while in December he reached the ninth position in the European Cup. The following season for the first time took part in the World Cup races, but so far without much success. 2004 began to bring him some medals, in particular, gold at the stage of the American Cup, and bronze in the European. In the 2005/06 season, he again fought for the world cup and for the first time in his career was in the top ten. Having beaten out as a national team leader, Sandford won the right to defend the honor of the country at the Olympic Games in Turin , where he took tenth place after all the races.
In the 2007/08 World Cup season at the stage in German Winterberg, he finished fourth, not reaching the podium a bit, and he came thirteenth at the World Championships in Swiss St. Moritz. In early 2010, he went to compete at the Olympic Games in Vancouver , but again remained far from the fight for prizes, showing the eleventh time. For all that, at the closing ceremony he carried the banner of New Zealand. The 2010/11 cup season, although it turned out to be unsuccessful with seventeenth place in the overall standings, nevertheless, at the stage in St. Moritz, Ben Sandford finished third and first entered the podium of these competitions. The 2011 World Cup in Königssee, Germany, brought him a disappointing twelfth place, but a year later at the world championships in the American Lake Placid he won the bronze medal in the men's singles program: “I am incredibly happy to be in the top three at the World Championships. It’s just fantastic that I managed to finish the season so successfully ” [1] .
In 2014, Sandford attended the Sochi Olympics , where he finished 20th.
Notes
- ↑ Elena Dyachkova. Sandford: Bronze of the 2012 World Cup in Skeleton - a fantastic result . R-Sport (February 26, 2012). Date of treatment May 18, 2012. Archived on September 16, 2012.