Winter sports
Friedrich gets his fifth World Cup double with a four-man bobsleigh victory
Francesco Friedrich, Thorsten Margis, Alexander Schüller and Felix Straub at the start of the four-man bobsleigh. photo
© Robert Michael/dpa
Francesco Friedrich won his sixth World Championship title with the German triple success in the premier class of four-man bobsleigh and can lift his own World Cup trophy.
Adam Ammour from BRC Thuringia completed Germany’s triple success after the German two-man bobsleigh pilots led by world champions Lisa Buckwitz and Vanessa Mark also stood on the podium on Saturday.
Curious: Friedrich can lift his own trophy. The cup’s donor in 1930 was Hubert de Martineau (1891 – 1976), who was president of the St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club for 45 years. He made it a condition that whoever wins the trophy five times in a row can keep it. Friedrich waived the privilege when he won in St. Moritz last year, renamed it “The Francesco Friedrich Bobsleigh Challenge Cup” and had the trophy re-engraved before the World Cup in Winterberg in Glashütte, Saxony. He then made the cup available to the world association and took the cup back himself.
As in the two-man bobsleigh race, the two-time double Olympic champion Friedrich set a track record in the first run of the four-man bobsleigh and obliterated the nine-year-old record of his former club colleague Nico Walther (53.48 seconds) in 53.12 seconds. With 53.11 seconds, he beat the mark again in the third run and laid the foundation for victory. Lochner was able to keep up with Friedrich at the start a good two weeks after his serious training crash, but lost too much time on the track.