From St. Moritz, SUI
(January 12, 2025) – The track in St. Moritz is known for many things: It’s one of the fastest tracks, it’s one of the longest tracks, and it’s definitely the oldest track still on tour.
Despite its length, it’s also known for putting on some tight racing. In the two bobsled races held earlier in the weekend, the average margin of victory was .025, with the two-woman bobsled race decided by .05 and the two-man race a dead heat.
And after the first heat of four-man bobsled the racing was as close as ever. Johannes Lochner and Brad Hall were tied for the lead. Francesco Friedrich and Michael Vogt were tied for third, only .01 back, meaning that among the four of them it was anyone’s race.
Of the four pilots, Vogt was first. His team gave him a top ten start in just his second race back from injury, and Vogt put down a downtime that was, to that point, the second quickest of the heat (.05 behind Adam Ammour). It was enough for the lead, but left the door open for the three teams ahead of him.
Up next was Friedrich. Of the four men, he had had the earliest start draw in the first heat and likely had slightly less-good ice compared to the others racing for gold. His team’s 4.97 start matched the first heat start record, and Friedrich cleaned up a few small mistakes from his first run to take the lead.
Great Britain’s Hall took to the ice next. As in the first heat, his team gave him the third quick start of the heat to work with, and Hall answered with a quick drive of his own. Late in the run he came back to Vogt, but at the finish line still had a hundredth of a second over the Swiss pilot to slide into the medals, no worse than a bronze.
Lochner was the final pilot off the top for the weekend. The German co-victor from two-man the day before gave up .05 to Friedrich off the top. And throughout his run he out-paced everyone else but his teammate, and by the bottom of the 1900+ meter slide, he was off the top of the podium but solidly in second place for his second medal of the weekend.
The final margin of victory was .24 from Friedrich to Lochner, with hall .07 behind Lochner in third and Vogt off of the podium by just a hundredth of a second.
The victory for Friedrich was number 34 in four-man World Cup action.
Behind all of the excitement for gold, Adam Ammour slid to a fifth place finish with the third quickest run of the day. He beat out Switzerland’s Timo Rohner, who slid to a career-best sixth place finish.
Canada’s Pat Norton slid to a 13th place finish in just his second look at the track in St. Mortiz. One spot behind Norton was teammate Taylor Austin, who moved up from 16th in the first heat to finish 14th.
Frank Del Duca, the lone American in the field, slid from 17th to 16th, while Great Britain’s Adam Baird was 18th.
Monaco had its first four-man entry in about four years. Boris Vain slid to 17th place in his first World Cup start at the front of a four-man sled.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Friedrich / Sommer Schüller / Straub | GER | 4 | 4.97 | 4.97 | 64.82 | 64.31 | 2:09.13 |
| 2 | Lochner / Fleishhauer / Bruckert / Bauer | GER | 7 | 5.03 | 5.02 | 64.81 | 64.55 | 2:09.36 |
| 3 | Hall / Lawrence / Greenwood / Cackett | GBR | 11 | 5.05 | 5.06 | 64.81 | 64.62 | 2:09.43 |
| 4 | Vogt / Schläpfer / Hufschmid / Haas | SUI | 16 | 5.13 | 5.14 | 64.82 | 64.62 | 2:09.44 |
| 5 | Ammour / Ammour / Hertel / Schenk | GER | 12 | 5.06 | 5.06 | 65.04 | 64.57 | 2:09.61 |
| 6 | Rohner / Jones / Annen / Hersperger | SUI | 10 | 5.16 | 5.18 | 64.99 | 64.75 | 2:09.74 |
| 7 | Treichl / Stepan / Mitterer / Huber | AUT | 5 | 5.05 | 5.09 | 65.01 | 64.82 | 2:09.83 |
| 8 | Kalenda / Kaufmanis / Miknis / Klava | LAT | 13 | 5.12 | 5.11 | 65.37 | 64.70 | 2:10.14 |
| 9 | Follador / Mariani / Rolli / Julliard | RUI | 8 | 5.14 | 5.15 | 65.42 | 65.01 | 2:10.43 |
| 10 | Baumgartner / Fantazzi / Verginer / Bilotti | ITA | 9 | 5.11 | 5.12 | 65.38 | 65.07 | 2:10.45 |
| 11 | Li / Jiang / Shi / Zhen | CHN | 1 | 5.17 | 5.18 | 65.52 | 65.15 | 2:10.67 |
| 12 | Kim / Chun / Kim / Lee | KOR | 21 | 5.10 | 5.17 | 65.25 | 65.55 | 2:10.80 |
| 13 | Norton / Evelyn / Bruggeling / Murray-Lawrene | CAN | 20 | 5.08 | 5.07 | 65.42 | 65.40 | 2:10.82 |
| 14 | Austin / Eskrick-Parkinson / Zanette / Ashley | CAN | 18 | 5.28 | 5.29 | 65.82 | 65.32 | 2:11.14 |
| 15 | Tentea / Dinescu / Pacioianu / Iordache | ROU | 6 | 5.20 | 5.18 | 65.70 | 65.46 | 2:11.16 |
| 16 | Del Duca / Vissering / Mitchell / Gilbert | USA | 14 | 5.13 | 5.17 | 65.92 | 65.68 | 2:11.60 |
| 17 | Vain / Ferri / Prevost / Borges | MON | 22 | 5.23 | 5.23 | 65.76 | 65.86 | 2:11.62 |
| 18 | Baird / Milward / Cartagena / Williams | GBR | 19 | 5.20 | 5.22 | 65.94 | 65.75 | 2:11.69 |
| 19 | Sun / Ding / Ye / An | CHN | 3 | 5.13 | 5.17 | 65.99 | 65.82 | 2:11.81 |
| 20 | Kranz / Bühler / Lenherr / Tschofen | LIE | 17 | 5.37 | 5.35 | 66.07 | 65.88 | 2:11.95 |
| 21 | Brown / John / Williams / John | TTO | 23 | 5.31 | 66.25 | |||
| 22 | Mandlbauer / Wiener / Hanschitz / Zech | AUT | 15 | 5.19 | 66.29 | |||
| 23 | Variola / Ragazzi / Batti / Artuso | ITA | 2 | 5.24 | 66.45 |