From St. Moritz, SUI
(January 29, 2023) – Johannes Lochner has spent a large portion of his career chasing teammate Francesco Friedrich, as well as trying to win a two-man World Championship that uncle Rudi had won back in 1991.
On Sunday he conquered St. Moritz, beat Friedrich, and joined his uncle Rudi as a two-man IBSF World Champion.
Lochner had opened up a decent lead after two heats, .32 ahead of Francesco Friedrich, with Michael Vogt back in third only .39 back. But on the third heat Lochner took control, effectively for good. His third run was only .04 off the pace set in his second trip down and nobody else could match it.
As he entered the fourth heat Lochner had a .69 advantage over Friedrich, with Vogt only .01 behind Friedrich. Vogt went first of the contenders and set what would be the second quickest time of the heat. However, Friedrich matched that time on his second run to stay .01 ahead.
The nearly .7 lead Lochner had was more than enough to cruise to a last run victory lap. But Lochner and brakeman Georg Fleischhauer still set the quickest start of the competition with a 5.01. The final trip down was a little bumpier than Lochner may have liked, but it was still enouhg to give the German a .49 second victory over Friedrich.
The gold was Lochner’s sixth two-man World Championships gold. He’d finished second behind Friedrich four different times, plus third behind Friedrich and Kripps in 2017.
“I knew that I had a lot of time, about .7, so we just had to have a good start and a pretty good run and and that would be enough for the gold medal,” Lochner said. “I was really happy when I came to the finish line, saw the number one and now we’re finally at the top ahead of Francesco!”
Lochner was also thrilled to finally join his uncle Rudi on the two-man trophy.
“It means a lot. My uncle is the reason that I started bobsleigh, and he was here today and I was really surprised that he was here at the track. I hadn’t seen him at the track since 2017 World Champs, and I’m really happy that he’s here and that I’m on the same trophy as him.”
Friedrich finished with a silver medal, his first ever in two-man bobsled World Championships competition. He had been the only two-man bobsled world champion since Steven Holcomb won in 2012.
Friedrich, who has battled a leg injury since the Christmas break finally was pushing in full, as he and Alexander Schüller had the second quickest start of the race in the third heat. The silver medal may not have been what he was looking for, but Friedrich was content with second.
“We can be satisfied”,” he said. “Today we have again taken full risk, in retrospect, that was perhaps not the right thing. But at least we have secured silver in this way. The track in St. Moritz is very selective this year.”
Michael Vogt finished third after a rough second run knocked him out of the lead and into third place after the first day. His third and fourth runs were both the second quickest of their respective heats but just not enough to move out of third.
Despite missing out on a silver by just a hundredth of a second, Vogt was happy with his bronze.
“The hundredth of a second on silver doesn’t annoy me. A medal was our goal, especially after the fourth place at the Olympics in Beijing.”
Germany put all three sleds in the top four. Christoph Hafer put down a solid fourth run to move up into fourth place, ahead of Great Britain’s Brad Hall.
Hall, who entered the second day of sliding in contention for a medal, had a tough final run that dropped him back behind Hafer.
Emils Cipulis of Latvia had the fastest run of the final heat and finished sixth.
France’s Romain Heinrich lingered around the top six all event and finished seventh in what is reportedly his last two-man World Championships.
Canada’s Pat Norton entered the third heat in 19th place. His third run was the ninth quickest of the heat and enough to move him up to 17th. On his fourth run he was once again quicker than he’d been in the first two heats, and that was enough to move him into 16th place.
For Norton, it was just a matter of figuring out the track.
“I was just putting the pieces together and finally found some clean lines out of Horseshoe that gave me some speed on the way to the bottom,” Norton said. “As soon as we started putting those pieces together the sled started to sing. I was really happy out of Horseshoe, then Telephone is coming right at you so you have to focus!”
Just behind Norton was Geoff Gadbois, who moved up from 20th to 18th in the second day of sliding. Gadbois started the event in 23rd and progressed forward throughout the remaining runs.
“I wish I could get my first heat back,” he said. “That was really my worst run of the week. We didn’t really make any big changes. I really wanted to work out the first kink, I skid pretty bad out of that first one in both heats. We cleaned it all up on the second run and kept the sled the same today. Ultimately I was a lot more consistent today than I was yesterday.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s Axel Brown had an outstanding run in the third heat to move up from 26th after the first day to move into 20th. His fourth run was equally quick, but not enough to move him up the order. But 20th was a career best in a race with 20 or more sleds for Brown.
USA’s Frank Del Duca and Hakeem Abdul-Saboor had their best start of the competition in the third heat, sixth quickest of the heat, but Del Duca crashed coming out of Horseshoe. He did cross the finish line and was credited with 26th.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Lochner / Fleischhauer | GER | 10 | 65.69 | 65.22 | 65.26 | 65.67 | 4:21.84 |
| 2 | Friedrich / Schüller | GER | 9 | 65.78 | 65.45 | 65.63 | 65.47 | 4:22.33 |
| 3 | Vogt / Michel | SUI | 7 | 65.62 | 65.68 | 65.57 | 65.47 | 4:22.34 |
| 4 | Hafer / Sommer | GER | 6 | 65.88 | 65.57 | 65.66 | 65.59 | 4:22.70 |
| 5 | Hall / Lawrence | GBR | 8 | 65.82 | 65.57 | 65.62 | 65.76 | 4:22.77 |
| 6 | Cipulis / Miknis | LAT | 2 | 66.22 | 65.65 | 65.61 | 65.46 | 4:22.94 |
| 7 | Heinrcih / Hauterville | FRA | 22 | 66.01 | 65.92 | 65.87 | 65.94 | 4:23.74 |
| 8 | Rohner / Rolli | SUI | 1 | 66.28 | 65.87 | 66.18 | 65.80 | 4:24.13 |
| 9 | Treichl / Sammer | AUT | 5 | 66.36 | 66.08 | 65.79 | 65.95 | 4:24.18 |
| 10 | Baumgartner / Fantazzini | ITA | 12 | 66.21 | 66.08 | 66.22 | 66.04 | 4:24.55 |
| 11 | Tentea / Daroczi | ROU | 15 | 66.50 | 66.14 | 66.12 | 65.91 | 4:24.67 |
| 12 | Vain / Riou | MON | 26 | 66.59 | 66.35 | 66.17 | 65.83 | 4:24.94 |
| 13 | Kalenda / Springis | LAT | 21 | 66.51 | 66.55 | 66.04 | 65.96 | 4:25.06 |
| 14 | Li / Ding | CHN | 18 | 66.51 | 66.37 | 66.26 | 66.36 | 4:25.50 |
| 15 | Dobes / Prochazka | CZE | 13 | 66.56 | 66.45 | 66.40 | 66.25 | 4:25.66 |
| 16 | Norton / Gray | CAN | 19 | 66.86 | 66.84 | 65.97 | 66.12 | 4:25.79 |
| 17 | Kim / Park | KOR | 17 | 66.65 | 66.49 | 66.30 | 66.36 | 4:25.80 |
| 18 | Gadbois / Christofferson | USA | 20 | 67.07 | 66.66 | 66.68 | 66.45 | 4:26.86 |
| 19 | Variola / Obou | ITA | 16 | 67.09 | 66.93 | 66.44 | 66.55 | 4:27.01 |
| 20 | Brown / John | TTO | 23 | 67.14 | 67.32 | 66.55 | 66.52 | 4:27.53 |
| 12 | Behounek / Zalesky | CZE | 24 | 66.86 | 67.30 | 66.96 | 3:21.12 | |
| 22 | Boron / Sosna | POL | 25 | 67.06 | 66.96 | 67.22 | 3:21.24 | |
| 23 | Mandlbauer / Nichols-Bardi | AUT | 30 | 67.19 | 67.23 | 66.97 | 3:21.39 | |
| 24 | Kranz / Lenherr | LIE | 29 | 67.20 | 67.18 | 67.13 | 3:21.51 | |
| 25 | Nica / Calencea | ROU | 27 | 67.94 | 67.62 | 68.01 | 3:23.57 | |
| 26 | Del Duca / Abdul-Saboor | USA | 11 | 66.94 | 66.65 | 77.86 | 3:31.45 | |
| DNS | Friedli / Haas | SUI | 4 | 66.22 | 66.34 | DNS | ||
| DNF | Austin / Murray-Law | CAN | 3 | 66.96 | DNF | |||
| DNF | Silic / Starek | CRO | 28 | DNF | ||||
| DNF | Ammour / Hertel | GER | 14 | DNF |
