From St. Moritz, SUI
(January 16, 2022) – The way the season had gone, coming into St. Moritz the season finale was absolutely Francesco Friedrich’s to lose. In four-man bobsled nobody had been close to him all season.
Enter Oskars Kibermanis.
The big Latvian hadn’t been necessarily struggling throughout the season, but he hadn’t been the medal hunt in four-man since the opening races in Igls. On his first run in St. Moritz, though, he opened up a .15 second lead over Russia’s Rostislav Gaitiukevich, with Friedrich in a tie with Christoph Hafer in third.
On the second run Friedrich flexed his muscles, setting the fast time of the race to move into the lead, which he held until Kibermanis’ final run.
Kibermanis and his team had a relatively pedestrian start, but the Latvian squad matched their first run downtime, which was enough to win and give Friedrich his first non-gold medal finish in the last race of the season.
The gold medal for Kibermanis was his second in World Cup four-man action. Expectedly, he was happy with he and his team’s effort.
“Of course we’re a little surprised to win, but we’re happy to end the season like this. It’s always nice to be here in St. Moritz, so of course we’re happy!”
Friedrich took silver in a race where he subbed out Thorsten Margis for Alexander Rödiger. Rödiger, making his final start of his World Cup career, helped Friedrich to a fourth place start in the second heat. Friedrich’s slid to a track record finish on the second run.
“It was so great,” Friedrich told IBSF television. “We gave everything we had for Alexander’s last run. We took second, but we won the track record so he ended his career with a track record in St. Moritz, and that’s the best way to do it.”
Russia’s Rostislsav Gaitiukevich finished in third after entering the second run in second place.
Hafer fell out of the medals on his second run in fourth, while German teammate Johannes Lochner had a big second run to move up from seventh in the first heat into a tie for fifth with Canada’s Justin Kripps.
Canada’s Christopher Spring finished his World Cup season with a ninth place finish, his second straight top ten. North American Cup four-man bobsled champion Taylor Austin rounded out the Canadian effort tied for 13th.
Hunter Church led the way for the United States with that tie with Austin. His team set the quick start time in the first heat with a 5.02 and matched that time on the second run. Teammate Frank Del Duca’s second run was .19 quicker than his first. That was enough to move him up from 19th in the first heat to 15th.
Brad Hall had another top ten finish for Great Britain with a top five start time. Teammate Lamin Deen finished 19th, up from 20th in the first heat.
Friedrich had already clinched the four-man title coming into St. Moritz. The title is his fourth straight. Kripps and Gaitiukevich rounded out the top three in the overall standings.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Kibermanis / Springis / Miknis / Nemme | LAT | 11 | 5.08 | 5.11 | 64.69 | 64.69 | 2:09.38 |
| 2 | Friedrich / Grothkopp / Rödiger / Schüller | GER | 9 | 5.09 | 5.06 | 64.88 | 64.66 | 2:09.54 |
| 3 | Gaitiukevich / Mordasov / Travkin / Laptev | RUS | 13 | 5.04 | 5.03 | 64.84 | 64.82 | 2:09.66 |
| 4 | Hafer / Salzer / Sommer / Schneider | GER | 12 | 5.11 | 5.10 | 64.88 | 64.80 | 2:09.68 |
| 5 | Lochner / Bauer / Weber / Rasp | GER | 6 | 5.07 | 5.08 | 64.96 | 64.80 | 2:09.76 |
| 5 | Kripps / Sommer / Stones / Dearborn | CAN | 5 | 5.03 | 5.05 | 64.92 | 64.84 | 2:09.76 |
| 7 | Vogt / Rolli / Bieri / Haas | SUI | 7 | 5.13 | 5.10 | 64.94 | 64.90 | 2:09.84 |
| 8 | Hall / Lawrence / Gleeson / Cackett | GBR | 8 | 5.05 | 5.06 | 65.05 | 64.92 | 2:09.97 |
| 9 | Spring / Evelyn / Sorensen / Giguere | CAN | 16 | 5.09 | 5.10 | 65.06 | 64.94 | 2:10.00 |
| 10 | Won / Kim / Kim / Jung | KOR | 3 | 5.13 | 5.14 | 65.22 | 65.06 | 2:10.28 |
| 11 | Heinrich / Lefebvre / Delmestre / Laporal | FRA | 19 | 5.14 | 5.13 | 65.10 | 65.28 | 2:10.38 |
| 12 | Andrianov / Pushkarev / Kondratenko / Lopin | RUS | 4 | 5.13 | 5.13 | 65.20 | 65.33 | 2:10.53 |
| 13 | Austin / Sunderland / Patrician / Murray-Lawrence | CAN | 14 | 5.17 | 5.14 | 65.29 | 65.33 | 2:10.62 |
| 13 | Church / Williamson / Horn / Volker | USA | 10 | 5.02 | 5.02 | 65.15 | 65.47 | 2:10.62 |
| 15 | Del Duca / Abdul-Saboor / Valdes / Wilcox | USA | 15 | 5.07 | 5.07 | 65.54 | 65.35 | 2:10.89 |
| 16 | Treichl / Glück / Mitterer / Eckschlager | AUT | 23 | 5.16 | 5.18 | 65.34 | 65.61 | 2:10.95 |
| 17 | de Bruin / Franjic / Franjic / Veenker | NED | 18 | 5.21 | 5.20 | 65.39 | 65.58 | 2:10.97 |
| 18 | Baumgartner / Ughi / Verginer / Bilotti | ITA | 21 | 5.24 | 5.24 | 65.49 | 65.71 | 2:11.20 |
| 19 | Deen / Blanchet / Dawes / Rutherford | GBR | 25 | 5.20 | 5.23 | 65.61 | 65.69 | 2:11.30 |
| 20 | Dvorak / M. Dobes / Hrazdil / Prochazka | CZE | 1 | 5.22 | 5.19 | 65.47 | 65.89 | 2:11.36 |
| 21 | Tentea / Dobre / Caroczi / Radu | ROU | 2 | 5.23 | 65.71 | |||
| 22 | Cipulis / Kleinbergs / Kaufmanis / Lindenblats | LAT | 26 | 5.10 | 65.99 | |||
| 23 | Bindilatti / Jeronimo / da Silva / Martins | BRA | 20 | 5.27 | 66.27 | |||
| 24 | Suk / Lee / Kim / Jang | KOR | 17 | 5.31 | 66.37 | |||
| DNS | Sun / Wu / Wu / Zhen | CHN | 22 | DNS | ||||
| DNS | Li / Ye / Shi / Ma | CHN | 24 | DNS |
