From Cortina d’Ampezzo, ITA
(February 16, 2026) – Johannes Lochner will spend Monday night as the leader in two-man bobsled by a yawning eight tenths of a second over reigning two-time Olympic gold medalist Francesco Friedrich.
Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer were the first team off the top and set a start record with a 4.78 with their push. From there, Lochner put on a clinic of a drive with an outstanding track record 54.68 to set the pace.
Up next was Friedrich. He and Alexander Schüller were a hundredth off the pace off the top, but Friedrich had a few small issues through the pivotal first few curves and that cost him the remainder of the way down his slide as he crossed the finish line nearly a half of a second back.
Adam Ammour and Alexander Schaller slid to second, .04 ahead of Friedrich and Germany held the podium after the first of four runs.
Finally it was Lochner’s turn off the top. His second run, while on a slower track, was nearly identical to his first. A nearly flawless second drive placed him a full eight tenths ahead of Friedrich, with Ammour 1.24 back in third.
“The first run was pretty awesome,” Lochner told the media after the heat. “I was incredibly excited for the race because it’s going to be the last two-man race of my life.”
Behind the Germans, Frank Del Duca and Josh Williamson slid to fourth place overnight with two runs that, while maybe not as clean as they’d have liked, were still quicker than any non-German.
“To have mistakes like we had today and still only be a tenth out is really a testament to how far we’ve come,” Del Duca said. “I need to fix the first Labyrinth, and then we will have a real shot.”
The big surprise of the second heat was Romania’s Mihai Tentea and George Iordache. The duo had a pair of relatively competitive starts. In the first heat Tentea sat tenth with a good enough drive. But Tentea’s second effort was the third quickest of the heat and enough to rocket up the leaderboard from tenth to fifth, just .24 behind Ammour in third.
Latvia’s Jekabs Kalenda and Matiss Miknis slid up to sixth from ninth in the first heat.
Great Britain’s Brad Hall and Taylor Lawrence had two clean enough runs but sit eighth overnight, four tenths out of the medals.
Taylor Austin and Shaq Murray-Lawrence moved up from 18th to 15th after two runs with the 12th quickest run of the second heat. Teammates Jay Dearborn and Daiyehan Nichols-Bardi are 22nd over night.
For the warm weather nations, four-time North American Cup two-man gold medalist Shane Pitter and Junior Harris sit 23rd, with Edson Bindilattl and Louis Bacca Goncalves 24th and the team of Axel Brown and De Aundre John 25th.
Standings After Two Heats:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Lochner / Fleischhauer | GER | 1 | 4.78 | 4.79 | 54.68 | 55.22 | 1:49.90 |
| 2 | Friedrich / Schüller | GER | 2 | 4.79 | 4.79 | 55.16 | 55.54 | 1:50.70 |
| 3 | Ammour / Schaller | GER | 3 | 4.79 | 4.79 | 55.12 | 56.02 | 1:51.14 |
| 4 | del Duca / Williamson | USA | 4 | 4.90 | 4.88 | 55.40 | 55.84 | 1:51.24 |
| 5 | Tentea / Iordache | ROU | 11 | 4.95 | 4.93 | 55.73 | 55.65 | 1:51.38 |
| 6 | Kalenda / Miknis | LAT | 10 | 4.85 | 4.82 | 55.68 | 55.75 | 1:51.43 |
| 7 | Vogt / Ndiaye | SUI | 6 | 4.89 | 4.88 | 55.64 | 55.85 | 1:51.49 |
| 8 | Hall / Lawrence | GBR | 7 | 4.85 | 4.86 | 55.65 | 55.89 | 1:51.54 |
| 9 | Baumgartner / Mircea | ITA | 9 | 4.94 | 4.93 | 55.58 | 56.00 | 1:51.58 |
| 10 | Heinrich / Hauterville | FRA | 13 | 4.90 | 4.89 | 55.75 | 55.89 | 1:51.64 |
| 11 | Treichl / Bertschler | AUT | 8 | 4.90 | 4.90 | 55.89 | 55.76 | 1:51.65 |
| 12 | Kim / Kim | KOR | 5 | 4.82 | 4.84 | 55.53 | 56.14 | 1:51.67 |
| 13 | Wesselink / Franjic | NED | 18 | 4.90 | 4.85 | 55.83 | 56.18 | 1:52.01 |
| 14 | Rohner / Annen | SUI | 15 | 4.98 | 4.98 | 55.95 | 56.14 | 1:52.09 |
| 15 | Austin / Murray-Lawrence | CAN | 26 | 4.99 | 4.98 | 56.18 | 56.07 | 1:52.25 |
| 16 | Follador / Rolli | SUI | 12 | 4.96 | 4.95 | 56.17 | 56.09 | 1:52.26 |
| 17 | Li / Ye | CHN | 21 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 55.99 | 56.30 | 1:52.29 |
| 18 | Sun / An | CHN | 16 | 4.86 | 4.89 | 56.15 | 56.16 | 1:52.31 |
| 19 | Suk / Chae | KOR | 19 | 4.98 | 4.98 | 56.27 | 56.23 | 1:52.50 |
| 20 | Kranz / Tschofen | LIE | 22 | 5.01 | 5.01 | 56.31 | 56.29 | 1:52.60 |
| 21 | Mandlbauer / Nichols-Bardi | AUT | 23 | 4.90 | 4.94 | 56.34 | 56.67 | 1:53.01 |
| 22 | Dearborn / Evelyn | CAN | 14 | 4.83 | 4.88 | 56.74 | 56.59 | 1:53.33 |
| 23 | Pitter / Harris | JAM | 20 | 5.00 | 4.93 | 56.68 | 56.72 | 1:53.40 |
| 24 | Bindilatti / Bacca Goncalves | BRA | 17 | 4.99 | 5.00 | 56.95 | 56.81 | 1:53.76 |
| 25 | Brown / John | TTO | 24 | 5.01 | 5.03 | 57.22 | 56.97 | 1:54.19 |
| 26 | Edelman / Chen | ISR | 25 | 5.12 | 5.12 | 57.39 | 57.22 | 1:54.61 |