From Whistler, CAN
(Mar. 8, 2019) – One week ago, both bobsled world championship races were run away victories for Germany, with both Francesco Friedrich and Mariama Jamanka winning big. The 4-man event to finish out the 2019 World Championships looks to be anything but that.
On the strength of both a track record in the first heat and a start record in the second, Latvia’s Oskars Kibermanis will spend the night as the leader in the final race of the 2019 World Championships. He finished the second heat just .04 ahead of Friedrich and .11 ahead of Justin Kripps, with the whole field seemingly packed up in small groups along the scoreboard.
Behind the leaders, Benjamin Maier moved up from fifth to fourth, only .04 ahead of Russia’s Maxim Andrianov in fifth and .12 ahead of Switzerland’s Michael Vogt in sixth.
Despite a sixth place run, Vogt clocked the fastest speed of the race at 156.92 km/h (97.5 mph) on a crazy-fast track. While the track has been quick all World Championships, it was a special kind of fast in the first heat of 4-man. The old track record fell with the second sled down (Vogt) and continued to drop for four more sleds in a row, until Oskars Kibermanis drove his sled to a 50.05. By the end of the first heat, the top 12 were all under the former record.
After a late draw gave him seemingly much slower ice than those up in the top ten, Codie Bascue came into the second heat in 14th. A very clean drive combined with some trouble around him moved him up to tenth into the overnight. Teammate Hunter Church was the first to go after a ten minute track hold after an Ivo de Bruin crash, and will enter the third heat in 16th.
Behind Justin Kripps, Canada’s other two sleds will look to make a big move in the second day. Chris Spring saw the track begin to slow up just before his second run as he fell from tenth to 11th, while Nick Poloniato could never seem to find the pace needed and finished the day in 22nd.
Great Britain will have some work to do to get into the top ten. Brad Hall led the way with a 12th place run, while Lamin Deen moved up from 17th to 15th in the second run.
Ivo de Bruin did not start the second heat due to a major laceration after a hard crash out of Curve 4.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Kibermanis / Miknis / Vilkaste / Strenga | LAT | 5 | 4.70 | 4.69 | 50.05 | 50.64 | 1:40.69 |
| 2 | Friedrich / Bauer / Grothkopp / Margis | GER | 4 | 4.74 | 4.74 | 50.16 | 50.57 | 1:40.73 |
| 3 | Kripps / Sommer / Stones / Coakwell | CAN | 9 | 4.76 | 4.75 | 50.13 | 50.67 | 1:40.80 |
| 4 | Maier / Walch / Sammer / Maldovan | AUT | 3 | 4.79 | 4.79 | 50.20 | 50.75 | 1:40.95 |
| 5 | Andrianov / Zaytsev / Kondratenko / Samitov | RUS | 8 | 4.77 | 4.79 | 50.17 | 50.82 | 1:40.99 |
| 6 | Vogt / Knuser / Friedli / Michel | SUI | 2 | 4.82 | 4.81 | 50.31 | 50.76 | 1:41.07 |
| 7 | Walther / Krenz / Rödiger / Franke | GER | 7 | 4.77 | 4.78 | 50.44 | 50.86 | 1:41.30 |
| 8 | Won / Kim / Lee / Oh | KOR | 10 | 4.80 | 4.80 | 50.52 | 50.89 | 1:41.41 |
| 9 | Lochner / Bauer / Weber / Rasp | GER | 6 | 4.76 | 4.79 | 50.71 | 50.84 | 1:41.55 |
| 10 | Bascue / Williamson / Reed / Kinney | USA | 20 | 4.76 | 4.78 | 50.73 | 50.86 | 1:41.59 |
| 11 | Spring / Auclair / Janke / Wright | CAN | 15 | 4.86 | 4.86 | 50.63 | 51.00 | 1:41.63 |
| 12 | Hall / Gleeson / Fearon / Simons | GBR | 16 | 4.76 | 4.77 | 50.64 | 51.03 | 1:41.67 |
| 13 | Bredikhin / Lylov / Malykh / Koshelev | RUS | 12 | 4.82 | 4.81 | 50.65 | 51.03 | 1:41.68 |
| 14 | Shao / Liu / Shi / Ma | CHN | 22 | 4.83 | 4.87 | 50.88 | 50.97 | 1:41.85 |
| 15 | Deen / Letts / Gilling / Olubi | GBR | 18 | 4.86 | 4.86 | 50.91 | 50.97 | 1:41.88 |
| 16 | Chuch / Allison / McConnell / Wilcox | USA | 14 | 4.86 | 4.89 | 50.91 | 51.10 | 1:42.01 |
| 17 | Suk / Kim / Kim / Bae | KOR | 21 | 4.86 | 4.86 | 51.27 | 51.13 | 1:42.40 |
| 18 | Sun / Wang / Wu / Wu | CHN | 1 | 4.90 | 4.92 | 50.87 | 51.57 | 1:42.44 |
| 19 | Baumgartner / Ughi / Variola / Atchori Essoh | ITA | 17 | 4.94 | 4.91 | 51.21 | 51.27 | 1:42.48 |
| 20 | Meyerhans / Moulinier / Beieri / Kuonen | SUI | 23 | 4.87 | 4.92 | 51.15 | 51.43 | 1:42.58 |
| 21 | Dvorak / Suchy / Sindelar / Nosek | CZE | 11 | 4.78 | 4.76 | 50.56 | 52.29 | 1:42.85 |
| 22 | Poloniato / Goncalves Silva / Norton / Joyce | CAN | 19 | 4.88 | 4.90 | 51.32 | 51.71 | 1:43.03 |
| DNS | de Bruin / Dumas / Veenker / Franjic | NED | 13 | 4.85 | 61.09 | DNS |
