Friedrich Wins Gold in Shortened Four-Man Race

Team Friedrich (Courtesy IBSF TV)The race day started off like any four-man bobsled race day. About halfway through the first heat, Kaizhi Sun of China crashed and a brief track hold followed. Afterward, Italy’s Patrick Baumgartner and Johannes Lochner took their first runs, but prior to Friedrich’s first effort another track hold was announced. The hold went on for roughly ten minutes before an announcement was made that the first heat had been scrapped and we would now have a one-heat race.

The reason for the delay was due to medical personnel not being available at track after the Chinese team’s crash. Per IBSF protocol, there must be a doctor on-site while sleds are on track.

So back to the top everyone went. In the second attempt, it was Adam Ammour taking the lead early. He held that lead for just over eight minutes until teammate Johannes Lochner took over in the top spot by .02.

It was then Friedrich’s tour. His team of Matthias Sommer, Alex Schüller, and Felix Straub gave him a race-quickest start, and Friedrich rewarded them with a race-quickest drive. Friedrich’s downtime of 54.17 was .17 ahead of Lochner, and solidified gold for him.

There was still one surprise left out on track. Austria’s Markus Treichl had always been a perennial top-five contender but had never won a medal. In his previous two seasons he’d scored nine top-six finishes with a best finish of fourth in Lake Placid to end the 2023/2024 season. Treichl’s team gave him a solid start, .01 off of the start by Lochner’s squad. Treichl answered the call and gave the drive of his life as he slid to a tie with Lochner to move into second place.

Great Britian’s Brad Hall was the last pilot with a shot at the medals. A competitive start was matched with a decent drive, but on Sunday he just didn’t have the speed as Hall finished .12 out of the medals in fifth.

Friedrich took gold, the 33rd of his four-man bobsled career, while Johannes Lochner tied with Markus Treichl for silver.

For Lochner, his silver was number 15 of his four-man career, while for Treichl the medal was the first of any kind at the World Cup level.

Ammour, in the third German sled, missed out on a medal by .02 and finished fourth, with Hall fifth. Latvia’s Jekabs Kalenda rounded out the top six.

The United States had one sled in the field, that of Frank Del Duca. He and his team had a competitive push but lacked the speed to contend, and finished 13th.

After the eir crash in the first attempt of the race, Kaizhi Sun chose to not take another run, as did teammate Chunjian Li.

Results:

PosNamesNationBibStartFinish

1	Friedrich / Sommer / Schüller / Straub	GER	9	5.05	54.17
2	Lochner / Flesichhauer / Bruckert / Tasche	GER	8	5.09	54.34
2	Treichl / Sammer / Stepan / Huber	AUT	10	5.10	54.34
4	Ammour / Hertel / Ammour / Schenk	GER	4	5.09	54.36
5	Hall / Lawrence / Greenwood / Cackett	GBR	16	5.12	54.46
6	Kalenda / Bebriss / Kaufmanis / Klava	LAT	12	5.25	54.78
7	Follador / Rolli / Mariani / Juillard	SUI	11	5.24	54.80
8	Rohner / Jones / Annen / Hersperger	SUI	14	5.29	54.86
9	Baumgartner / Fantazzini / Mircea / Bilotti	ITA	7	5.27	54.90
10	Tentea / Dinescu / acioianu / Iordache	ROU	5	5.26	54.93
11	Behounek / Dobes / Wijas / Vila	CZE	17	5.26	55.06
12	Mandlbauer / Hanschitz / Glaboniat / Zech	AUT	15	5.32	55.13
13	del Duca / Vissering / Volker / Mitchell	USA	18	5.16	55.33
14	Variola / Bagnini / Batti / Artuso	ITA	3	5.51	55.71
15	Kranz / Bühler / Huber / Lenherr	LIE	1	5.62	56.41
DNS	Kim / Lee / Lee / Park	KOR	2		DNS
DNS	Sun / Ding / Ye / An	CHN	6		DNS
DNS	Li / Jiang / Shi / Wei	CHN	13		DNS