At the weekend the German bobsleigh pilots start their home World Championships in Winterberg, where they are among the big favorites. However, this would not be possible at all without their pushers.
Francesco Friedrich, Laura Nolte and Johannes Lochner – they are all already Olympic champions or world champions. But it’s not just their title haul that the three have in common; at the end of the day, whether they’re successful or defeated, they have to answer questions. Because as bobsleigh pilots they are the stars of the scene, the bosses in the ice track.
Ever since sprint star Alexandra Burghardt and Mariama Jamanka sensationally won Olympic silver in Beijing in their first and only season as pushers, the people who sit behind the pilots in the bobsleigh have increasingly become the focus of reporting.
No success without pushers
Not without reason: What would a Francesco Friedrich be without his pusher Thorsten Margis, with whom he won Olympic gold four times and dominated racing for years? Or Johannes Lochner, who, together with Georg Fleischhauer, is currently winning one race after another in the two-man bobsleigh – after Lochner’s fall in Altenberg last week, the two now want to attack again at the upcoming World Championships in Winterberg.
Video: rbb24 | October 31, 2023 | Jonas Schützeberg
“Most people don’t know exactly what our job as pushers looks like and what part we play in everything. So they also don’t know how unpleasant it can be to sit in the back of the sled and not see anything. Having to endure that for an entire season “It’s a hard job. You’re happy about the appreciation.”said Fleischhauer in an interview with Sportschau. The 35-year-old has only been on Lochner’s team since last season, and the victory in the two-man bobsleigh at the 2023 World Cup was their greatest success together to date.
A bit like fear of death
Like Burghardt, Fleischhauer is also a career changer. And like so many other pushers, he also comes from athletics. As a two-time German champion in the 400 meter hurdles, he took part in world and European championships, but his big dream of the Olympics remained unfulfilled. Still, because as a pusher this could come true in 2026.
Fleischhauer still remembers his first rides on the bobsled well. That was in Altenberg in 2019. “They were very severe. Afterwards I had a headache and felt sick. You’re totally tense, you just hope that you get to the bottom safely. A bit like being afraid of death.”, he says. Fortunately, things went much better the next day. “You can train there and be as good as you want, but if you can’t handle the driving itself, it’s all pointless.”
Pushers are not only asked at the start
But what exactly does the work of the pushers actually look like? They are the “girls and boys for everything” – to put it simply. Grinding runners, dragging the sleigh from A to B, keeping the pilot happy. “So basically anything the pilot doesn’t feel like doing”says Fleischhauer with a laugh. From a sporting perspective, pushing is a matter of strength and speed. The goal: to be the fastest at the start. “It’s all or nothing. When you get the start command, you just give it full throttle. That’s five or six seconds until you jump into the bobsleigh and put your head down.”describes Fleischhauer.
The handles when getting in should also be right. Especially in the four-man bobsleigh, where even more coordination is required. The pilot then takes over, in whose hands the pushers place their fate. “There is hardly any other sport in which one person completely trusts the other with their life. We can’t do anything at the back of the sled.” And how dangerous it can be was only shown at the last World Cup in Altenberg, when Michael Vogt’s Swiss four-man bobsleigh crashed badly during training and pusher Sandro Michel was seriously injured.
From pusher to pilot
Fleischhauer would also have been interested in becoming a pilot himself, but he got involved in bobsleighing too late. Completely different from Vice World Champion Lisa Buckwitz, who started her career as a pusher at the age of 18 and just a few seasons later achieved what many athletes dream of – she became Olympic champion in Pyeongchang in 2018 together with her pilot Mariama Jamanka. After the games, Buckwitz decided to train as a pilot.
“Because I had already achieved everything in such a short time, I no longer had any real motivation and fell into a hole. That’s why I needed a new goal, and that was to win an Olympic medal as a pilot.”said the 29-year-old to the sports show. Normally you start straight away as a pilot, but a change between pushers and female pushers is very rare. Buckwitz herself had to start from scratch and even lost her squad status because of the change in sport. “It took a long time and a lot of patience. As an athlete you always want to go higher, faster, further, but bobsleigh is a sport with experience.”says Buckwitz. She has had to fight through it from year to year, so the current season is only her second in the World Cup.
pressure at the pushers especially high
As a former pusher, Buckwitz can understand what her teammates have to go through. This also includes the struggle to even get a place in one of the sleighs. A central performance test is carried out before each season; only the best make it onto the World Cup team. The established bobsleigh pilots decide in consultation with the trainers which constellation a team will ultimately compete in.
The pressure is particularly high for women, as the number of places is much smaller compared to men. “There are two-man and four-man bobsleighs, where five people per team can take part. In addition to the two-man bobsleigh, we also have the monobob, where the pushers also work, but in the end they don’t have anything to gain from a victory.”, Buckwitz points out. The bobsleigh competitions at the home World Championships in Winterberg start on Saturday (February 24, 2024). At least Georg Fleischhauer should be the pusher.