Humphries and Kasjanov kickstart World Cup campaigns with a win

With Cynthia Appiah as her brakewoman, the Canadian clocked the fastest time on each of her two heats to finish with a combined time of 1:46.53.

That was 0.24 seconds faster than Austria's Christina Hengster and Sanne Dekker, who finished in 1:46.77,while Americans Jamie Greubel Poser and Lauren Gibbs completed the podium in 1:46.86.

Fellow Americans Elana Meyers Taylor and Kehri Jones suffered a heavy crash during their first run which saw the latter ejected out the back of the sled.

Humphries leads the early overall World Cup standings after the first of eight races on 225 points, followed by Hengster, while Brit Mica McNeill is eighth alongside brakewoman Mica Moore.

Meanwhile Russia's Alexander Kasjanov got his four-man bobsleigh World Cup campaign off to a winning start as he topped the timing sheets in Whistler.

Sliding alongside teammates Alexey Zaitsev, Aleksei Pushkarev and Maxim Belugin, the 2015 European silver medallist was 0.20 seconds faster than his rivals after finishing with a time of 1:42.51.

Silver went to the Swiss crew of Rico Peter, Bror van der Zijde, Simon Friedli and Thomas Amrhein in 1:42.71 while Johannes Lochner and his German team of Matthias Kagerhuber, Sebastian Mrowka and Christian Rasp moved from eleventh place after the first heat into the final podium place, 0.43 seconds behind the Russians.

Kasjanov duly leads the overall standings on 225 points, ahead of Peter and Lochner.

Sportsbeat 2016