Historic triumph for Friedrich in a German double victory
A class of its own: Francesco Friedrich (right) with his gold crew of Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schüller
Quelle: Getty Images/Julian Finney
Francesco Friedrich was the first bobsleigh pilot to win two Olympic double golds. The record world champion also triumphed in the four-man bobsleigh at these Winter Games. Johannes Lochner makes the German double victory perfect. The Olympic ice track is the gold track of the Germans.
Francesco Friedrich made bobsleigh history and was the first pilot to win Olympic double gold for the second time. After winning the 2-man bobsleigh, the 31-year-old also triumphed in the big sled at the Beijing Winter Games on Sunday, repeating his two gold medals from Pyeongchang four years ago. Johannes Lochner from Berchtesgaden took second place in the Sliding Center Yanqing, Christoph Hafer from BC Bad Feilnbach finished fourth behind Canadian Justin Kripps.
After Friedrich only had a mini lead of 0.03 seconds over Lochner at half-time, he made a preliminary decision in the third run. With a much better start than Lochner, Friedrich came close to his internal competitor’s track record of 58.13 seconds and was 0.20 seconds ahead of the finale.
In the last run he set the best time again, extending the lead over Lochner to 0.37 seconds. Bitter for the third German: Hafer missed his second bronze medal by only six hundredths of a second and thus the first German triple triumph in the big sled. In the two-man bobsleigh, German pilots took the first three places.
In 2026 he can trump André Lange
With four Olympic gold medals, Friedrich has now drawn level with André Lange, who won the four-man bobsleigh in 2002 and 2006 and the two-man bobsleigh in 2006 and 2010. Overall, however, Lange still has another silver medal from the Vancouver Games in 2010, making him the most successful pilot in Olympic history. This could trump Friedrich in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in four years.
Exceptional athlete: Francesco Friedrich celebrates his triumph
Source: dpa/Robert Michael
In the Olympic history of bobsledding, only Andreas Osterl (1952), Eugenio Monti (Italy/1968), Meinhard Nehmer (1976), Wolfgang Hoppe (1984), Lange (2006) and Friedrich 2018 in Pyeongchang have won both disciplines. Now the Saxon was the first to repeat this coup.