Mainers were active on two Olympic fronts as competition wound down Saturday at the Beijing Games.
Bethel resident and University of Maine graduate Frank Del Duca drove his U.S. four-man bobsled team to a share of 13th place, while Sophia Laukli of Yarmouth finished 15th among 65 competitors in the women’s 30-kilometer mass start cross country skiing race.
Del Duca, driving a sled whose riders included former University of Maine track and field teammate Jimmy Reed, finished with a time of 3 minutes, 57.65 seconds.
That compared with the gold medal-winning sled driven by Germany’s Francesco Friedrich, which was timed in 3:54.30.
The 31-year-old Del Duca also finished 13th in the two-man bobsled competition earlier in these Olympics.
Laukli, 21, made her Olympic debut in the mass-start cross-country skiing race and finished in 1 hour, 31 minutes and 21.2 seconds, or 6 minutes, 27.2 seconds behind Norway’s Therese Johaug, who won her third gold medal of the Beijing Games with a time of 1:24:54.0.
American Jessie Diggins finished second, 1:43.3 behind Johaug to secure the best U.S. finish in an individual Olympic cross-country skiing event since 1976.