Friedrich Wins First Gold in Lake Placid, Takes Season Title

From Lake Placid, USA

(March 23, 2024) – Francesco Friedrich rarely has a chance to get a “first ever” at this point in his storied career. He’s basically won everywhere in everything. But he arrived in Lake Placid still looking for his first career four-man bobsled gold.

But in a one-heat race to end the 2023/2024 season, Friedrich scored his very first Lake Placid four-man gold medal as part of a German sweep of the podium.

Friedrich’s team gave him a 5.05 start off the top and Friedrich drove them to the lead by .28 ahead of teammate Adam Ammour.

From there, team after team tried to match Friedrich but failed to. The penultimate team off the top was led by Johannes Lochner. Lochner and his squad out-pushed by Friedrich’s team by .03, but Lochner couldn’t quite find the speed needed at the bottom to stay ahead of his teammate. Lochner finished .17 behind Friedrich to wedge himself between teammates Friedrich and Ammour to give Germany a sweep of the podium.

“We’re very happy with this win,” Friedrich said of his victory. “Our new brakeman, Matthias Sommer, got his first World Cup competition win also! It was a good day for us, we would have won if it were two heats, but it is what it is and we’re very happy!”

Friedrich continued, “Our run was really good, we had some really good lines and we’re really prepared for the World Championships here next year.”

The race was well into its second heat when Austria’s Markus Treichl hit a patch of concrete on the track, likely exposed from an earlier second heat crash by Latvia’s Emils Cipulis. With the repair of the ice taking a good deal of time, the decision was made to revert the race to the first heat’s results and cancel the second run.

Treichl had slid to fourth place in the first heat, .04 ahead of Switzerland’s Simon Friedli and Canada’s Taylor Austin.

USA’s Frank Del Duca and Kris Horn finished seventh and eighth, while Great Britain’s Adam Baird finished 14th.

With his win, Francesco Friedrich took the season title ahead of Latvia’s Emils Cipulis and Germany’s Johannes Lochner in second and third. Simon Friedli and Patrick Baumgartner rounded out the top five on the season.

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