Francesco friedrich remains the undefeated dominator in the olympic winter.
But even more important to him is his bobsleigh sport. Immediately before the four-man bobsleigh race in altenberg, the double olympic champion from BSC oberbarenburg signed a sponsorship contract – not for himself, but as a challenge to his austrian opponent benjamin maier. "We are happy to support benni and his team for another year and thus support our sport," friedrich shared on instagram.
In the ice chute he then had everything under control. With his crew thorsten margis, martin grothkopp and alexander schuller he relegated canadian justin kripps to second place with a lead of 0.28 seconds. Third place went to russian rostislav gaitjukewitsch ahead of friedrich unterstutzte maier. "We are still working hard, for us it was somehow a test race. We still have many tasks to solve," said friedrich.
Christoph hafer from BC bad feilnbach came after place two in the two-man bob this time on rank nine. Johannes lochner from berchtesgaden, who started for stuttgart, had to settle for 21st place. After he could start in the two-man bob only with half power due to thigh problems and also had a miserable run, his team failed in the king class. After the start, the push rods did not collapse. With that, lochner raced down the demanding track with fully extended buckets and only avoided a nasty fall with a lot of luck. As 21. He also missed out on qualifying for the second round.
In the women’s competition, the change of pushers paid off. Kim kalicki won ahead of mariama jamanka. For the first time this winter kalicki skied with push-puller lisa buckwitz, who after the olympic victory with jamanka in pyeongchang was actually already successful as a pilot in the european cup. Finally she is an olympic alternative again as a pusher for peking.
As well as alexandra burghardt: germany’s fastest sprinter harmonized better and better with jamanka at the start and provided with her thrust for the second best start time in each case. Thus she laid the foundation for another second place in the world cup after second place in winterberg. "I am megahappy about the result, i had my problems here in altenberg last time. We’re always working our way forward," said jamanka, and burghardt said: "when the sled flies right, it’s just awesome."