From Lake Placid, USA
(March 15, 2025) – There may have been some controversy regarding the cancelation of the second heat in the 2025 IBSF World Championship four-man bobsled race, but one thing was clear: Francesco Friedrich was not going to be caught regardless of how many runs were taken.
Freidrich extended his one heat lead of .29 over teammate Johannes Lochner to over a half of a second in the second heat, with Great Britain’s Brad Hall in third, still just .02 behind Lochner, with the remainder of the field including Adam Ammour and Frank Del Duca well back on the outside looking in.
Del Duca took a shot at the medals as he out-slid Adam Ammour to move up from fifth to what would eventually be fourth, with the top three to go.
Hall was next, and his team gave him their quickest start of the competition with a 5.00 and Hall slid to the quickest run of the heat to that point to put the pressure on Lochner.
But Lochner answered with a strong run of his own. His team matched their first start of 4.96 and Lochner out-slid Hall by .2 in the final run to guarantee Germany a gold medal.
Friedrich’s final slide wasn’t his best, nor was it the best of the heat, but with a half of a second lead all he realistically needed to do was finish upright, which he did easily. His third run was the third quickest of the heat and enough to give him gold by .28 over Lochner, with Hall third.
The gold medal for Friedrich was his seventh in four-man bobsled world championships and his 16th between two-man and four-man. Afterward, he was asked what it meant to be the best to ever do it.
“We give our best and want to stand on the podium after every race,” Friedrich said. “There’s no pressure for us to be on top, we want to be on the top in every season and in every race. It’s fun!” “Normally we come down the track in one pice we shoud normally win.
“The first start was really bad and disappointing,” Lochner said after the race. “We lost so much time there and down to a quarter of a second at the first intermediate time. There was plenty of motivation for the second and third runs and we executed.”
Del Duca took fourth place, and while he would have loved a medal, a personal best in the four-seater was a great accomplishment.
“We had a new crew put together for this race on pretty short notice, Del Duca said. “And I can’t speak highly enough of the guys and how they came together and made it happen. It was our best overall pushing performance and my personal best in four-man.”
Ammour finished in fifth, with Switzerland’s Michael Vogt rounding out the top six.
The United States put two sleds in the top ten with Kris Horn in seventh. Geoffrey Gadbois, fighting a hamstring injury, slid to an 18th place finish, up from 21st in the first heat.
Taylor Austin had a strong second day for Canada as he slid from 12th place in the first heat up into the top ten, eventually finishing eighth. Pat Norton was 15th, tied with Jekabss Kalenda, while Jay Norton finished 20th in his first world championship race as a pilot.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Total |
| 1 | Friedrich / Sommer / Schüller / Straub | GER | 1 | 54.23 | 54.78 | 55.51 | 2:44.52 |
| 2 | Lochner / Bauer / Wenzel / Fleischhauer | GER | 2 | 54.52 | 55.03 | 55.25 | 2:44.80 |
| 3 | Hall / Gulliver / Lawrence / Cackett | GBR | 3 | 54.54 | 55.03 | 55.43 | 2:45.00 |
| 4 | Del Duca / Williamson / Niederhofer / Volker | USA | 11 | 54.93 | 55.12 | 55.55 | 2:45.64 |
| 5 | Ammour / Stadelmann / Ammour / Schenk | GER | 4 | 54.87 | 55.11 | 55.72 | 2:45.70 |
| 6 | Vogt / Jones / Hufschmid / Ndiaye | SUI | 7 | 55.12 | 55.43 | 55.71 | 2:46.26 |
| 7 | Horn / Vissering / Christofferson / Powell | USA | 22 | 55.08 | 55.34 | 55.97 | 2:46.39 |
| 8 | Austin / Evelyn/ Bruggeling / Murray-Lawrence | CAN | 16 | 55.29 | 55.64 | 55.71 | 2:46.64 |
| 9 | Kim / Kim / Kim / Lee | KOR | 10 | 55.08 | 55.67 | 55.96 | 2:46.71 |
| 10 | Rohner / Schläpfer / Annen / Hersperger | SUI | 8 | 55.27 | 55.53 | 56.15 | 2:46.95 |
| 11 | Baumgartner / Fantazzini / Mircea / Bilotti | ITA | 5 | 55.19 | 55.66 | 56.30 | 2:47.15 |
| 12 | Sun / Ding / Ye Zhen | CHN | 15 | 55.29 | 56.69 | 56.19 | 2:47.17 |
| 13 | Bindilatti / Martins / da Silva / Jeronimo | BRA | 21 | 55.38 | 55.80 | 56.14 | 2:47.32 |
| 14 | Follador / Mariani / Vögele / Juillard | SUI | 6 | 55.29 | 55.94 | 56.36 | 2:47.59 |
| 15 | Norton / Zanette / Eskrick-Parkinson / Ashley | CAN | 12 | 55.51 | 55.93 | 56.28 | 2:47.72 |
| 15 | Kalenda / Bebriss / Miknis / Klava | LAT | 9 | 55.25 | 56.12 | 56.34 | 2:47.72 |
| 17 | Tentea / Dinescu / Pacioianu / Iordache | ROU | 14 | 55.74 | 55.86 | 56.15 | 2:47.75 |
| 18 | Gadbois / Storms / Adams / Gilbert | USA | 20 | 56.03 | 56.14 | 56.49 | 2:48.66 |
| 19 | Behounek / Dobes / Wijas / Rapp | CZE | 18 | 55.84 | 56.10 | 56.82 | 2:48.76 |
| 20 | Dearborn / M’Pindou / de Guzman / Ade | CAN | 25 | 55.94 | 56.70 | 57.02 | 2:49.66 |
| 21 | Palakai / Wongpiyakul / Maddulem / Donpritee | THA | 19 | 57.32 | 57.93 | 2:55.25 | |
| 22 | Suk / Lee / Park / Jung | KOR | 23 | 56.27 | 56.70 | 2:52.97 | |
| DNF | Li / Jiang / Shi /An | CHN | 13 | 55.79 | DNF | ||
| DNS | Peters / Takapautolo / Penington / Forst | AUS | 24 | 65.63 | DNS | ||
| DNS | Mandlbauer / Stepan / Nichols-Bardi / Bertschler | AUT | 17 | DNS |