In the first weeks of the Olympic season, the Bavarian has been ahead in the ongoing duel.
Johannes Lochner has once again edged out record world champion Francesco Friedrich, winning the third World Cup race of the Olympic bobsleigh season.
At the start of the race weekend in Innsbruck-Igls, the 35-year-old overall World Cup winner of the past season won the two-man race with pusher Georg Fleischhauer by a very narrow margin ahead of Friedrich and Alexander Schaller.
As at the World Cup opener in the two-man event on the Olympic track in Cortina d’Ampezzo last week, Adam Ammour (Oberhof), this time with Tim Becker in the sled, ensured a German triple success behind the two old masters.
Lochner (Stuttgart), who wants to crown his announced career end at the Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo in February with his first Olympic gold, surprisingly clearly beat the four-time Olympic champion Friedrich (Oberbärenburg) in the small sled.
In the first exchange of blows in Innsbruck, the two rivals were only five hundredths apart at the end.
The bobsleigh competitions are the only ones that will be held this season on the track of Innsbruck-Igls, which was rebuilt in 20 months for almost 30 million euros, after the planned World Cups in skeleton and luge had been canceled due to security concerns. The lugers postponed their season start from December 5th to 7th due to the problems in Winterberg. The canceled skeleton races will be made up at the end of December in Latvia.
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