Friedrich Leads Four-Man World Champs After Two Heats

From St. Moritz, SUI

(February 4, 2023) – It had been a long 2023 so far for Francesco Friedrich. Dealing with injury, the four-time four-man world champion hasn’t raced his best over the past month leading into the four-man bobsled portion of the IBSF World Championships. But on Saturday he was back to his peak form with two great drives to take the lead after two heats.

Friedrich and his crew had the two quickest start times in the competition, and with them Friedrich had the quickest drive in each heat on his way to a .2 second lead over Great Britain’s Brad Hall.

Friedrich finished the first heat .01 ahead of Hall after Hall out-drove the German on the final portion of the Swiss track. On the second run Friedrich threw down a time .19 quicker than Hall’s second effort to open up the .2 lead at halftime.

Latvia’s Emils Cipulis and his team matched Hall’s team’s second heat push and Cipulis out-drove everyone but Friedrich and Hall in that second heat to jump up ot third from sixth after one run.

Two-man world champion Johannes Lochner ended his day in fourth place, .84 behind Friedrich and .26 out of the medals. Christoph Hafer moved up from seventh to end the day in fifth place, while Michael Vogt struggled on his second run and finished the day in sixth place.

Canada’s Taylor Austin led the North American crew with a 13th place result after two runs. USA’s Geoff Gadbois ended the day in 18th place, two spots ahead of Canada’s Pat Norton.

Romain Heinrich of France, making his final runs of his career, ended the day in 11th.

Results: