From Lillehammer, NOR
(December 3, 2023) – Sunday kicked off the four-man bobsled portion of the 2023/2024 Europe Cup season, and the season began with a tight race that saw a German victory.
On the surface it was a cruise to victory: Nico Semmler and his team had the two quick starts of the race and had the fast downtime in each heat on their way to a gold medal. But it was tight behind them as Team Alexander Czudaj were right on their heels.
After the first heat Czudaj and Race 1 two-man winner Timo Rohner were both in contention for gold, with Czudaj only .02 off the pace and Rohner just .15 back. Hans Peter Hannighofer, Jakob Mandlbauer and Mihai Tentea were all in the hunt as well, all within .2 of Semmler.
The battle for the medals slowly shook out, with Tentea putting down a scorching second run to move into the lead and hold it past Hannighofer, Rohner, and Mandlbauer.
Alexander Czudaj had a good second slide, .3 off of Tentea’s pace to take the lead and solidify a medal no worse than silver.
Finally it was Team Semmler’s turn. Their second run had both the fast push of the race and the quick downtime of the heat as they won by just .06 over Czudaj for the first gold medal of the season.
Germany went one-two with Semmler and Czudaj in the two top spots, while Romania’s Tentea finished with a bronze medal on the strength of the third quickest start in each heat.
Hannighofer finished fourth, .28 out of the medals and just .04 ahead of both Switzerland’s Rohner and Austria’s Mandlbauer, who tied for fifth.
Great Britain couldn’t quite crack the top ten, as Adam Baird finished in 11th. John Stanbridge finished two spots back in 13th.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Axel Brown finished 14th.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Finish |
| 1 | Semmler / Ebert / Dahms / Neumann | GER | 6 | 5.13 | 5.11 | 50.85 | 50.99 | 1:41.84 |
| 2 | Czudaj / Schenk / Götzel / Vogel | GER | 9 | 5.20 | 5.20 | 50.87 | 51.03 | 1:41.90 |
| 3 | Tentea / Dinescu / Pacioianu / Iordache | ROU | 13 | 5.15 | 5.15 | 51.04 | 51.00 | 1:42.04 |
| 4 | Hannighofer / Hempel / Sauerbrei / Leypold | GER | 8 | 5.19 | 5.20 | 51.02 | 51.30 | 1:42.32 |
| 5 | Rohner / Matthys / Novakovic / Hersperger | SUI | 12 | 5.19 | 5.17 | 51.00 | 51.36 | 1:42.36 |
| 5 | Mandlbauer / Wiener / Hanschitz / Nichols-Bardi | AUT | 7 | 5.22 | 5.20 | 51.03 | 51.33 | 1:42.36 |
| 7 | Wesselink / Franjic / Franjic / Huis in ‘t Veld | NED | 16 | 5.14 | 5.12 | 51.16 | 51.33 | 1:42.49 |
| 8 | Zern / Paul / Proske / Mausch | GER | 11 | 5.22 | 5.23 | 51.24 | 51.29 | 1:42.53 |
| 9 | Kaiser / Seifert / Volgger / Zech | AUT | 4 | 5.33 | 5.28 | 51.44 | 51.58 | 1:43.02 |
| 10 | Behounek / Fomenko / Wijas / Vila | CZE | 5 | 5.21 | 5.17 | 51.43 | 51.84 | 1:43.27 |
| 11 | Baird / Williams / Cartagena / Greenwood | GER | 2 | 5.18 | 5.15 | 51.61 | 51.72 | 1:43.33 |
| 12 | Verginer / Pagnini / Storti / Ceresatto | ITA | 15 | 5.26 | 5.33 | 51.67 | 51.84 | 1:43.51 |
| 13 | Stanbridge / Hullah / Kay / Dixon | GBR | 3 | 5.32 | 5.34 | 51.86 | 52.84 | 1:44.70 |
| 14 | Brown / King / Williams / John | TTO | 14 | 5.60 | 5.59 | 52.30 | 52.41 | 1:44.71 |
| 15 | Boron / Sienkiewicz / Boinski / Buba | POL | 1 | 5.54 | 5.53 | 52.29 | 52.43 | 1:44.72 |
| 16 | Nica / Asurdoaie / Oleinic / Dinca | ROU | 18 | 5.34 | 5.38 | 52.22 | 52.53 | 1:44.75 |
| 17 | Turea / Vlad / Dobre / Cordos | ROU | 19 | 5.67 | 5.59 | 52.99 | 52.74 | 1:45.73 |
| 18 | Gazmuri-Olivares / Waler Aslaksby / Kongssund / Hoffmefoss Sletten | NOR | 17 | 5.86 | 5.76 | 53.02 | 52.86 | 1:45.88 |
| DSQ | Baechler / Ambs / Flaven / Alais | FRA | 10 | 5.50 | DSQ |
