It was a German festival on the natural ice rink in St. Moritz – but one person was the most happy. Francesco Friedrich came back strongly after difficult days.
This Francesco Friedrich has nerves of steel and doesn’t let adversity throw him off course. A few days after his pusher Simon Wulff tested positive for a banned stimulant, the record champion in the two-man bobsleigh on the natural ice rink in St. Moritz was unimpressed and shared the victory with his German rival Johannes Lochner. Adam Ammour completed the strong German performance in third place.
Friedrich: From third place to victory
The fans in the Swiss bobsleigh Mecca experienced a thriller on Saturday (January 11th, 2025). After the first round, Lochner was ahead of Ammour and Friedrich. The distances were a few hundredths.
Unlike what was planned for the trip to Switzerland, Friedrich sat in the bobsleigh with pusher Alexander Schüller. To be on the safe side, the team decided not to use Wulff because the stimulant methylhexanamine, which is banned in competitions, was detected in a sample from the 24-year-old from the opening weekend in Altenberg. A temporary ban has not yet followed.
In the final, Friedrich/Schüller performed impressively. First they set a new start record in 5:05 seconds, then they caught every corner perfectly and raced to the finish at top speed, where the “1” clearly appeared.
Lochner sweats and cheers
The young Ammour, who has already had to overcome serious falls this season, was unable to beat the time and fell behind Friedrich, 0.07 seconds behind. As the leader after the first run, Lochner started last with pusher Georg Fleischhauer.
The duo initially lost, the split times consistently showed second place, and then there was celebration at the finish: Thanks to his lead (0.06 seconds from the first round), Lochner was at the same time as Friedrich at the end. Friedrich and Lochner recorded a total of 2:12.21 minutes after two runs and made for feelings of happiness after cloudy days.
Women’s monobob race has to give way to four-man bobsleigh
The World Cup for the bobsleigh pilots in St. Moritz began with bad news. The World Cup weekend in the mecca of bobsleigh sport – St. Moritz in the Swiss Engadine – was actually supposed to open on Saturday with the monobob competition, but the schedule had to be thrown out at short notice.
Lisa Buckwitz leads the overall monobob ranking.
As the world association IBSF announced, the monobob decision was canceled. Background: The four-man bobsleigh training planned for Friday had to be canceled due to high temperatures. Since training is a prerequisite for Sunday’s race, it was rescheduled for Saturday afternoon, while the men’s two-man bobsleigh race took the place of the mono race.
The women around the German aces Laura Nolte (BSC Winterberg), Lisa Buckwitz (BRC Thuringia) and Kim Kalicki (TuS Eintracht Wiesbaden) had to make way for this. You now have a day longer break and will not be able to use the natural ice rink until Sunday (January 12, 2025). Small consolation: The monobob race will be rescheduled for the second World Cup weekend in St. Moritz on January 24th.
Only natural ice rink in the world
The rink in St. Moritz is the only natural ice rink in the world. It is rebuilt every year by South Tyrolean specialists. The experts need almost three weeks to do this. The unique driving results from the natural ice; it is “very quiet” and “completely different” than on the artificial ice rinks, say the athletes. The over 300 days of sunshine a year round off the unique atmosphere in Switzerland – but the sunshine may have put a damper on the bobsleigh pilots’ good mood for a short time.