Johannes Lochner from Berchtesgaden is the outstanding bobsleigh pilot on the first race weekend in Yanqing/China. After victories in the two and four, the Olympic silver medalist celebrated his third victory in the third race.
Three races, three victories – the start of the World Cup went perfectly for bobsleigh pilot Johannes Lochner. Even if he hasn’t completed all of his runs on the Yanquing ice track without any mistakes, the Berchtesgaden native was the outstanding man in the first races of the season on the Olympic ice track in 2021.
Eleven sleds took part in the second foursome competition. And already in the first round, Lochner showed that victory was all about him. He was 0.03 seconds ahead of double Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich. A further 0.10 seconds behind, the Italian Patrick Baumgartner initially finished third.
Baumgartner attacks and finds Francesco Friedrich
In the second run, South Tyrolean Baumgartner conjured up another strong run on the ice. After the best start time of all teams, it impressed even in the curves, which were sometimes difficult to approach, had the top speed of all sleds at times and was able to calmly wait for the two leading German teams at the finish.
Lochner stays cool and wins clearly
Francesco Friedrich was the first to give chase, but had problems in the starting area when a bracket was not caught in time. The dominant driver of the past few years also made a few unusual mistakes on the way down to the valley, but he was still narrowly leading at the last split. Only in the last few meters did he lose another hundredth of a second to Baumgartner and in the end had to settle for third place, just 0.01 seconds behind the Italian.
But Johannes Lochner stayed cool, got through the curves and labyrinths again without making any major mistakes, and was clearly ahead at the finish. With his pushers Georg Fleischhauer, Florian Bauer and Joshua Taschen, the 33-year-old was 0.32 seconds ahead of record world champion Friedrich after both runs.
We continue in La Plagne
The next World Cup stop is La Plagne (France), where the women’s season for Olympic champion Laura Nolte starts on December 9th and 10th. In Beijing, the women’s monobob and two-man bobsleigh races were canceled due to a lack of participants due to logistical difficulties.