Friedrich leads triple victory
In the two-man bobsleigh, only black, red and gold celebrate
2/15/2022 3:34 p.m
Francesco Friedrich is the dominator of bobsleigh and he’s showing it at the Winter Olympics. The series winner wins gold in the two-man bobsleigh, leading a black, red and gold trio. Johannes Lochner takes silver, Christoph Hafer ensures the perfect result from a German perspective with bronze.
Francesco Friedrich is the second German after André Lange to win the Olympics in two-man bobsleigh for the second time in a row. The record world champion from Saxony prevailed at the Winter Games in China after four rounds with a lead of 0.49 seconds over his teammate Johannes Lochner. With bronze, Christoph Hafer ensured the first triple success in Olympic bobsleigh history. After four Olympic victories in luge and two gold medals in skeleton, it was Germany’s seventh triumph in the Yanqing ice track.
To repeat the success of Pyeongchang, Friedrich had thrown his plans overboard just before the first run on Monday and switched to Kim Kalicki’s bobsleigh. Like Friedrich’s first choice, the sled was built by the Berlin Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment (FES), but had a faster set-up for the current conditions on the Olympic track. Already in the first run, the German flag bearer raced to a track record of 59.02 seconds with the new vehicle.
In the third run, Friedrich once again demonstrated his supremacy, beating the track record to 58.99 seconds. Immediately afterwards, Lochner made a serious mistake in turn 13, which is why he went into the final run with a big deficit of 0.48 seconds. At the end Friedrich drove the best time of the field again.
Friedrich wants to go down in bobsleigh history with his second coup this weekend. Never before has a pilot managed to win both competitions at consecutive Winter Games. After the double in Pyeongchang and the first gold in Beijing, the 31-year-old is only missing the win in the foursome. Friedrich is the big favorite in the races.