Francesco Friedrich’s winning streak is broken. The Saxon had to admit defeat in the fourth race of the season. Namely from teammate Johannes Lochner. The third German sled with Adam Ammour crashed again – for the third time on the third start. There was a German double victory in the women’s two-man bobsleigh. Laura Nolte put things right again after her second place in the monobob.
Bobsleigh pilot Johannes Lochner celebrated his first win of the season – and relegated bobsleigh dominator Francesco Friedrich to third place. In the two-man bobsleigh competition on Sunday (December 15, 2024) in Sigulda, Latvia, Lochner won with pusher Jörn Wenzel. In what was only Pusher Wenzel’s second World Cup race, Lochner set the best time in both runs. In 1:39.24 minutes, the German won ahead of the British bobsleigh with Bradley Hall and Taylor Lawrence (+ 0.21 seconds) and Friedrich (+ 0.30 seconds).
Lochner: “We can still do it”
“So we can still do it. Not that I’m beginning to doubt”laughed Lochner after his first two-man bobsleigh victory in almost a year: “I’m happy with the rides. You can clearly see that if the start times aren’t right, you won’t win anything down there. We can’t expect Francesco to make mistakes. The most important thing is to get your legs fit and start quickly.”
Friedrich with Schüller instead of Wulff
Friedrich, who was not traveling with his new pusher Simon Wulff but with his experienced partner Alexander Schüller, only achieved the third best time in both runs. With Schüller, Friedrich holds the start record of 4.75 seconds in Sigulda from November 2020 – but the record Olympic champion missed his fourth victory in the fourth race of the season.
Friedrich: Almost crash in curve 13/14
“We would have liked to have done better, but the others were better”Friedrich was annoyed after the competition and analyzed his runs like this: “There were a lot of things wrong in the first run. It started at the start, then the whole journey was too late, too little everywhere. That continued in the second run and turns eleven, twelve, 13. That was pretty hairy . It was better in the second one. National coach René Spies commented on Friedrich’s difficulties in curve 13/14 as follows: “For Franz, passage 13/14 was critical. He handled it really well. But that wasn’t far from the fall.”
Ammour falls again – and misses out
Adam Ammour had a really dark weekend. After the Thuringian had already fallen twice on Saturday with pusher Nick Stadelmann, Ammour had it again on Sunday. With pusher Benedikt Hertel, he initially achieved the best start time of the round with 4.84 seconds. But he didn’t get the sled to the finish line cleanly. He fell again in the difficult curve 13/14 – here he had already lost control of his sled on Saturday.
And of all places in Sigulda, where he celebrated the first World Cup victory of his career last season. The 23-year-old decided not to start the second race on Sunday after falling again.
Spies: “No concept for the 13/14”
After the race, national coach Spies said about Ammour’s fall: “We then took it out after consulting with him. That was important now because he had no concept for passage 13/14. These are things that happen on a completely different level. The respect is there, it matters No sense in letting him fall down there.”
Women’s two-man bobsleigh: Nolte wins ahead of Kalicki
In the two-man bobsleigh race on Sunday morning, Laura Nolte had also made it onto the podium in the fourth bobsleigh race of the winter. The woman from Winterberg won the third race of the season. With pusher Leonie Kluwig, she relegated her German teammate Kim Kalicki and Neele Schuten (+ 0.11 seconds) as well as Kaysha Love and Jsamine Jones from the USA (+ 0.63 seconds) to second and third place.
Nolte: “Excessively satisfied”
Nolte, who started the race for the first time with pusher Kluwig, was happy: “We had great start times. I’m very happy with that.” There was particular praise for Kluwig: “I’m extremely happy. Leo did so well. The conditions weren’t easy, the start track was completely covered in snow.”
Buckwitz: “Fourth is ungrateful”
Nolte was 0.23 seconds ahead of the competition in the first run. With a higher starting number, Nolte benefited, among other things, from a track that became faster as the race progressed. Lisa Buckwitz, who won the monobob on Saturday, had to finish fourth in the first run with Kira Lipperheide. After finishing sixth in the first run, the Thuringian finally improved to fourth place.
Buckwitz was fastest at the start in both races. She was particularly happy about this: “I’m very happy with the two start times. It was thankless in the first run with start number four, but we fought back. Fourth is thankless”said the 30-year-old.