WINTERBERG, Germany -- Todd Hays' accident in corner 14 in training on Wednesday left the U.S. bobsleigh driver out cold for 15 seconds and the ice buildup in the corner - the last one before the finish line - was enough for Canadian driver Pierre Lueders to call it "negligence."

Nothing quite as dramatic for Kaillie Humphries in Saturday's women's race. But she caught air on her first run in the same corner and had difficulty again in her second run en route to a fifth-place finish in a race in which she and brakeman Heather Moyse broke the track record start-time.

"It didn't seem to like me today," Humphries said, shaking her head. "It's a tricky corner. It catches you. You can't sleep right up to the finish line."

Humphries, of Calgary, and Summerside, P.E.I's Moyse were third after their first run despite taking the corner with the blades on the right-hand side of the sled in the air.

They finished with a combined time of 1:57.30, just .03 seconds off a podium place. The Germans finished 1-2, with Cathleen Martini capturing the gold medal in 1:55.65 and Sandra Kiriasis winning the silver in 1:57.26. Erin Pac and Elana Myers of the U.S.A. were third.

Helen Upperton and Jenny Ciochetti of Calgary finished seventh, 1.05 seconds behind Humphries and Moyse. Amanda Stepenko of Edmonton and Amanda Moreley of Surrey, B.C., finished 12th in 1:58.48.

The result left Humphries fifth in the World Cup standings with 736 points, 16 ahead of Upperton. Martini leads Kiriasis 885-830 in what is a three-country race (Canada, Germany, the U.S.A.) for the right to earn a third sled in the Vancouver Olympics.

Stepenko is 10th with 554 points.

The men's race went Saturday afternoon and Pierre Lueders was forced to make a change in brakemen after Jesse Lumsden came down with a flu that has ravaged the sliding team this weekend in the bone-chilling Winterberg dampness. Neville Wright replaced Lumsden.

Lueders pulled his groin during the first run, and he and Wright placed 19th overall.  

"It sucks," Lueders said. "You work to get things ready and then something like this comes along and hits you."

Lumsden is ticketed to be Lueders' brakeman in the Olympics. The Canadian women's brakemen's situation is, however, different: the team has been rotating brakemen and drivers in an attempt to come up with the right combination.

Saturday's race was the second one this season in which Moyse and Humphries - the latter of whom is a former brakeman - broke a track record for starts. They did the same thing in Park City, Utah.

Humphries is relatively new to driving and admits she does not have the necessary consistency - that she still has to do more in-race driving than other pilots to correct mistakes. Still, she has been in the top six in all four World Cup races and unless there's a sudden change it's difficult to see how the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton decision-makers don't pair up Humphries and Moyse in Vancouver.

The bobsleigh circuit moves to Altenberg next weekend, where the Canadians expect colder temperatures and immaculate ice will play into their hands. Stepenko won a Europa Cup race there, so she anticipates a solid result. Humphries, too, likes the technical nature of the Altenberg track and says it could be a significant touchstone in her learning process.

"I really like Altenberg," she said. "It's a good driver's track - and I see to like to drive a lot, more than the other pilots," she said, rolling her eyes. "But that's just my inexperience."

Upperton was frustrated.

"There are sometimes where you're just not really fast and you're not sure why," Upperton said. "So we go back to the garage and sort out the equipment. The whole first half of the season has been a work in progress but this is really the first race where I've been really frustrated with the result."