Francesco Friedrich fends off Lochner’s strong attack in the last corners when defending the title.
Led by the two-time double Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich, the German bob pilots at the World Cup in Lake Placid achieved a sovereign triple victory.
In a hundredth of thriller in the demanding Olympic ice channel from 1932 and 1980, the 34-year-old Friedrich once again left his eternal rival Johannes Lochner (Stuttgart)-but only by 0.03 seconds after four runs. Adam Ammour (Oberhof/+0.83) secured the bronze medal.
Lochner put another exclamation mark with a hard drive in the fourth run, but Friedrich still had an answer ready. His start was a hundredth of slower, the meantime even spoke for Lochner after the upper part. In the lower part, however, Friedrich got everything out of his sled and was minimally ahead of Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer (Potsdam) at the finish line – and made the defense perfect.
After the first day of the competition, Friedrich with Alexander Schüller (Halle) was still 14 hundredths of a second in front of Lochner, but he knew very well about the risk of the little cushion. “You lose that quickly here,” the Pirnaer warned of his two runs and kept right. Behind Friedrich and Lochner, Ammour drove with Supervisor Benedikt Hertel (Oberhof) in two more solid trips to his third World Cup medal.
On Sunday evening from 10.30 p.m., the first medal decision among women is made in the fourth run of the Monobob. Then defending champion Laura Nolte (Winterberg) in particular has a good chance of further precious metal for the team of the BOB and sled association for Germany (BSD). Next Saturday and Sunday, the world’s best will be sought in the two of the women and in the four of the men.