From Lillehammer, NOR
(January 18, 2025) – France’s Romain Heinrich scored his first career four-man bobsled gold medal as a pilot on Saturday as he came from behind to edge out four German teams for the win.
Heinrich tailed both Alexander Czudaj and Laurin Zern, the previous day’s two-man winner, after one run in a strong field in Lillehammer.
In the second heat Heinrich’s team picked up their start by .04 over their first heat push, and Heinrich answered with the best drive of the heat to take the lead from Tobias Dostthaler, who had moved up from fifth into contention for the medals.
Laurin Zern’s team had trouble at the top, and their start time was nearly a quarter of a second off of Heinrich’s and .34 slower than their first. Zern couldn’t make up the time and fell out of the medals, behind teammate Moritz Bollmann with only Czudaj left to go.
Czudaj’s team nearly matched their first start, and the German had a .16 second advantage off the top. Czudaj just was not as clean as Friedrich on his second run, and fell behind by .09 at the finish to give Heinrich the victory, with Czudaj second and Dostthaler up to third from sixth in the first heat.
The win was the first four-man victory on the Europe Cup for Heinrich as a pilot. He’d previously won gold on the brakes for Loic Costerg nearly a decade ago.
Bollmann took fourth and Zern fifth, tied with Switzerland’s Nils Reich.
Great Britain’s Nick Gleeson missed a top ten by .08 as he slid to 11th place.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Finish |
| 1 | Heinrich / Lefebvre / Blairon / Afagbegee | FRA | 3 | 5.13 | 5.09 | 50.61 | 50.57 | 1:41.18 |
| 2 | Czudaj / Lüdtke / Dahms / Vogel | GER | 13 | 5.05 | 5.07 | 50.47 | 50.80 | 1:41.27 |
| 3 | Dostthaler / Maywald / Büthe / Kocevar | GER | 4 | 5.11 | 5.10 | 50.83 | 50.69 | 1:41.52 |
| 4 | Bollmann / Reuter / Hempel / Lanitz | GER | 5 | 5.07 | 5.08 | 50.91 | 50.88 | 1:41.79 |
| 5 | Zern / Peth / Becker / Schaller | GER | 14 | 4.99 | 5.33 | 50.51 | 51.30 | 1:41.81 |
| 5 | Reich/ Koeferli / Bierl / Eichenberger | SUI | 8 | 5.14 | 5.13 | 50.80 | 51.01 | 1:41.81 |
| 7 | Scherrer / Grüninger / Leutwyler / Grüninger | SUI | 11 | 5.20 | 5.21 | 51.07 | 51.00 | 1:42.07 |
| 8 | Prochazka / Jindra / Havelka / Petrikovic | CZE | 7 | 5.12 | 5.12 | 50.96 | 51.12 | 1:42.08 |
| 9 | Chi / Zhu / Sun / Ding | CHN | 2 | 5.06 | 5.05 | 51.06 | 51.16 | 1:42.22 |
| 10 | Rohn / Toure / Hohl / Matossi | SUI | 15 | 5.30 | 5.26 | 51.15 | 51.15 | 1:42.30 |
| 11 | Gleeson / Rayne / rowell / Gardiner | GBR | 12 | 5.27 | 5.29 | 51.45 | 51.58 | 1:43.03 |
| 12 | Baechler / Adoui / Novakovic / Alais | FRA | 6 | 5.24 | 5.22 | 51.54 | 51.62 | 1:43.16 |
| 13 | Grantins / Ungurs / Kaufmanis / Nemme | LAT | 9 | 5.45 | 5.42 | 51.83 | 51.86 | 1:43.69 |
| 14 | Zakrzewski / Sosna / Boinski / Buba | POL | 10 | 5.64 | 5.62 | 52.87 | 52.63 | 1:45.50 |
| 15 | Bangiev / Parizov / Bryer / Curtin | BUL | 1 | 8.19 | 8.31 | 60.70 | 61.16 | 2:01.86 |