From Winterberg, GER
(February 25, 2024) – In 2023, Francesco Friedrich saw a seven race two-man championships winning streak snapped by Johannes Lochner. A year later, Friedrich showed he still was the man to beat as he dominated the race on his way to a decisive victory.
Friedrich and Alexander Schüller had the fast push in both of the first two heats, and in both of those runs Friedrich drove to a track record downtime.. In the third run, Friedrich again broke the track record down to 54.39. His final run was not a track record effort, it wasn’t even the quickest run of the heat, but it was more than enough to keep him ahead of anyone else to win gold by .34.
Friedrich’s gold medal gave him eight wins in the last 9 two-man world championships. Including the Olympics, he’s won ten golds in the last 11 four-heat races.
Behind Friedrich, there was a heck of a race for silver. Adam and Issam Ammour led Johannes Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer by .13 going into the last heat after Lochner closed a .3 second gap by over half. In the fourth heat, Friedrich went first and put down a very racy downtime that was far and away quicker than anyone else to that point in the fourth heat.
But Ammour answered. A year after crashing in the first heat of the St. Moritz event, Ammour drove like a long-time veteran and matched Lochner’s fourth heat downtime to take silver, with Lochner grabbing bronze.
Ammours silver caps an outstanding first full season on the IBSF World Cup tour where he’s won multiple medals, including two golds.
Lochner’s bronze was his seventh two-man bobsled world championships medal and his 14th world championships medal across two-man, four-man, and the now-defunct team competition.
Out of the medals there was a tight race to be the top non-German sled. The United States’ Frank Del Duca and Manteo Mitchell slid to a fourth place spot after the first heat, but fell to fifth overnight with Brad Hall and Taylor Lawrence just ahead of him.
In the third run, Hall opened up the lead over Del Duca to .18. In the fourth heat Del Duca slid to the lead with Hall and the Germans to go, solidifying the United States’ first two-man championships top five finish since Steven Holcomb did it in 2013.
Hall’s fourth slide was a tenth better than his third, and enough to put him ahead of Del Duca for a fourth place showing, .3 ahead of Del Duca in fifth.
Latvia’s Emils Cipulis and Matiss Miknis improved their rank from seventh to sixth across the course of the race, but stalled out there and finished sixth.
Monaco’s Boris Vain and Antoine Riou finished seventh in Vain’s best finish as a pilot to date at the top level. Patrick Baumgartner and Robert Mircea slid to an eight place effort from ninth in the first heat.
The teams of Austria’s Markus Treichl and Sascha Stepan and Switerland’s Simon Friedli and Andreas Haas rounded out the top ten.
The United States’ Kris Horn and Hakeem Abdul-Saboor finished 14th in Horn’s first look at the track in Winterberg and first championships as a pilot.
For the Canadians, Pat Norton and Mike Evelyn finished 17th after a tough luck third run where a handful of sleds got stuck sliding in a heavy snow. Teammates Taylor Austin and Shane Ohrt finished 22nd.
Great Britain’s John Stanbridge and Jens Hullah missed out on the fourth run in 23rd, but had the 19th best run in the final heat to finish strong.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Friedrich / Schüller | GER | 1 | 54.67 | 54.54 | 54.39 | 54.67 | 3:38.27 |
| 2 | Ammour / Ammour | GER | 3 | 54.73 | 54.70 | 54.62 | 54.56 | 3:38.61 |
| 3 | Lochner / Flesichhauer | GER | 2 | 54.92 | 54.81 | 54.45 | 54.56 | 3:38.74 |
| 4 | Hall / Lawrence | GBR | 16 | 55.10 | 54.90 | 55.02 | 54.92 | 3:39.94 |
| 5 | Del Duca / Mitchell | USA | 7 | 55.07 | 54.99 | 55.14 | 55.04 | 3:40.24 |
| 6 | Cipulis / Miknis | LAT | 4 | 55.25 | 55.14 | 55.04 | 55.19 | 3:40.62 |
| 7 | Vain / Riou | MON | 20 | 55.23 | 55.24 | 55.26 | 55.23 | 3:40.96 |
| 8 | Baumgartner / Mircea | ITA | 6 | 55.43 | 55.18 | 55.20 | 55.31 | 3:41.12 |
| 9 | Treichl / Stepan | AUT | 9 | 55.30 | 55.35 | 55.23 | 55.32 | 3:41.20 |
| 10 | Friedli / Haas | SUI | 5 | 55.53 | 55.30 | 55.23 | 55.24 | 3:41.30 |
| 11 | Follador / Rolli | SUI | 8 | 55.45 | 55.45 | 55.27 | 55.34 | 3:41.51 |
| 12 | Rohner / Jones | SUI | 14 | 55.58 | 55.35 | 55.40 | 55.31 | 3:41.64 |
| 13 | Tentea / Iordache | ROU | 12 | 55.48 | 55.49 | 55.44 | 55.37 | 3:41.78 |
| 14 | Horn / Abdul-Saboor | USA | 15 | 55.53 | 55.50 | 55.47 | 55.44 | 3:41.94 |
| 15 | Li / Zhen | CHN | 10 | 55.55 | 55.55 | 55.46 | 55.48 | 3:42.04 |
| 16 | Behounek / Wijas | CZE | 19 | 55.76 | 55.60 | 56.05 | 55.54 | 3:42.95 |
| 17 | Norton / Evelyn | CAN | 24 | 55.75 | 55.54 | 56.18 | 55.57 | 3:43.04 |
| 18 | Mandlbauer / Nichols-Bardi | AUT | 21 | 55.72 | 55.67 | 56.14 | 55.64 | 3:43.17 |
| 19 | Wesselink / Franjic | NED | 23 | 55.75 | 55.71 | 56.07 | 55.69 | 3:43.22 |
| 20 | Prochazka / Bures | CZE | 27 | 55.72 | 55.56 | 55.83 | 56.98 | 3:44.09 |
| 21 | Sun / Ye | CHN | 11 | 55.78 | 55.56 | 56.20 | 2:47.54 | |
| 22 | Austin / Ohrt | CAN | 18 | 55.92 | 55.71 | 56.08 | 2:47.71 | |
| 23 | Stanbridge / Hullah | GBR | 17 | 55.86 | 55.91 | 56.02 | 2:47.79 | |
| 24 | Boron / Sienkiewicz | POL | 26 | 55.95 | 55.89 | 55.97 | 2:47.81 | |
| 25 | Kranz / Bertschler | LIE | 22 | 55.88 | 55.75 | 56.30 | 2:47.93 | |
| 26 | Variola / Batti | ITA | 25 | 56.07 | 55.98 | 55.91 | 2:47.96 | |
| 27 | Sobczyk / Sosna | POL | 28 | 56.15 | 55.94 | 56.26 | 2:48.35 | |
| DNS | Kalenda / Ungurs | LAT | 13 | 55.50 | 60.24 | DNS |
