From Winterberg, GER
(January 4, 2025) – Francesco Friedrich is a man who owns a lot of records. Really, most of the records at this point. In Winterberg, coming into the World Cup race weekend to open the 2025 calendar year, he held the start record (alongside Thorsten Margis) and the track record (with Alexander Schüller).
But as they say, records are made to be broken, even if they’re your own.
Friedrich once again paired with Schüller to open the new year, and in their first run the German duo coupled a strong start (a tenth off the start record) with a perfect drive by Friedrich to lower the track record by .34 to 54.05. That run was also enough to give Friedrich a huge lead over anyone else.
Friedrich’s second drive was still under the old track record, and enough to take gold by .21 over teammate Adam Ammour.
The gold was number 50 of Friedrich’s World Cup career and 60th between World Cup, World Championships and the Olympic Winter Games.
Behind Friedrich, Ammour and Benedickt Hertel had an outstanding second heat where the duo set the quick start of the competition and matched it with the second quickest run ever in Winterberg two-man competition to leapfrog Johannes Lochner to win silver, the first of his career to go with two golds and four silvers in the two-man discipline.
Lochner and Joshua Tasche entered the second heat in second but fell to third in the second heat to round out the German sweep.
Brad Hall and Taylor Lawrence paired up to have a pair of top six starts on their way to a fourth-place finish. South Korea’s Jinsu Kim and Hyeonggeun Kim finished fifth, with Patrick Baumgartner and Robert Mircea in sixth.
The United States’ Frank Del Duca and Manteo Mitchell slid to a tenth-place finish. They were fifth after the first heat, but the field was tight behind them and a couple small mistakes dropped Del Duca behind a three-way seventh place tie.
Canada made its first appearance on the men’s side of bobsled, with Taylor Austin and Pat Norton both in action. Austin, with Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson, finished 21st. Norton and Mike Evelyn finished 23rd in their first World Cup starts of the season.
Adam Baird and Ollie Butterworth finished 13th in the second two-man sled for Great Britain.
After four races on the IBSF World Cup two-man schedule, Francesco Friedrich leads Johannes Lochner by 30 points. Brad Hall is third, with Patrick Baumgartner and Markus Treichl tied for fourth.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Friedrich / Schüller | GER | 8 | 5.15 | 5.15 | 54.05 | 54.21 | 1:48.26 |
| 2 | Ammour / Hertel | GER | 16 | 5.16 | 5.13 | 54.36 | 54.11 | 1:48.47 |
| 3 | Lochner / Tasche | GER | 13 | 5.20 | 5.25 | 54.32 | 54.56 | 1:48.88 |
| 4 | Hall / Lawrence | GBR | 4 | 5.21 | 5.22 | 54.56 | 54.60 | 1:49.16 |
| 5 | Kim / Kim | KOR | 15 | 5.19 | 5.18 | 54.76 | 54.68 | 1:49.44 |
| 6 | Baumgartner / Mircea | ITA | 7 | 5.28 | 5.27 | 54.77 | 54.76 | 1:49.53 |
| 7 | Treichl / Stepan | AUT | 12 | 5.19 | 5.21 | 54.82 | 54.74 | 1:49.56 |
| 7 | Vogt / Haas | SUI | 24 | 5.31 | 5.30 | 54.81 | 54.75 | 1:49.56 |
| 7 | Rohner / Jones | SUI | 10 | 5.27 | 5.27 | 54.75 | 54.81 | 1:49.56 |
| 10 | Del Duca / Mitchell | USA | 9 | 5.25 | 5.29 | 54.66 | 54.93 | 1:49.59 |
| 11 | Tentea / Iordache | ROU | 2 | 5.30 | 5.30 | 54.81 | 54.81 | 1:49.62 |
| 12 | Sun / Zhen | CHN | 20 | 5.25 | 5.27 | 54.92 | 54.93 | 1:49.85 |
| 13 | Kalenda / Bebriss | LAT | 6 | 5.28 | 5.29 | 54.94 | 54.96 | 1:49.90 |
| 14 | Follador / Rolli | SUI | 5 | 5.34 | 5.33 | 54.89 | 55.04 | 1:49.93 |
| 15 | Li / Shi | CHN | 11 | 5.25 | 5.25 | 55.13 | 54.96 | 1:50.09 |
| 16 | Baird / Butterworth | GBR | 19 | 5.28 | 5.27 | 55.15 | 55.00 | 1:50.15 |
| 17 | Mandlbauer / Zech | AUT | 21 | 5.31 | 5.32 | 55.06 | 55.15 | 1:50.21 |
| 18 | Vain / Riou / Prevost | MON | 14 | 5.34 | 5.36 | 55.17 | 55.09 | 1:50.26 |
| 19 | Variola / Batti | ITA | 3 | 5.28 | 5.29 | 55.20 | 55.11 | 1:50.31 |
| 20 | Kranz / Lenherr | LIE | 1 | 5.55 | 5.53 | 55.33 | 55.38 | 1:50.71 |
| 21 | Austin / Eskrick-Parkinson | CAN | 26 | 5.41 | 55.36 | |||
| 22 | Wesselink / Franjic | NED | 25 | 5.27 | 55.41 | |||
| 23 | Norton / Evelyn | CAN | 27 | 5.33 | 55.59 | |||
| 24 | Turea / Dinca | ROU | 17 | 5.38 | 55.62 | |||
| 25 | Behounek / Dobes | CZE | 18 | 5.34 | 55.69 | |||
| 26 | Silic / Krajisnik | CRO | 23 | 5.54 | 55.83 | |||
| 27 | Nica / Calancea | ROU | 22 | 5.50 | 56.34 |