From Cortina d’Ampezzo, ITA
(February 17, 2026) – There has been a lot of close racing throughout the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, including throughout the mid-pack of the two-man bobsled field.
But for two-man gold, there was no competition. Johannes Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer completely dominated the event, winning by a yawning 1.34 seconds.
Lochner held a .8 second lead over Francesco Friedrich and Alexander Schüller after two runs, with the remainder of the field over a second off the pace already.
On a slower track than on Monday, Lochner and Fleischhauer pushed off three hundredths off their start record pace, and Lochner once again put down a near-flawless slide.
Friedrich and Schüller matched their teammates’ time off the top, and this time Friedrich was able to mostly keep pace with Lochner, but still gave up another .12 going into the fourth and final heat.
Needing a great slide, Friedrich once again outslid the rest of the field to take the lead ahead of teammate Adam Ammour with Lochner to go. But Lochner once again threw down the quick run of the heat, the fourth time in fourth heats, and slid to victory for his first career Olympic gold medal after winning a pair of silver medals in Beijing.
Coming into the race, Lochner had announced that this would be his last set of races, so not only was it an emotional victory, but also the end of an era for the Bavarian.
“Right now, it’s all just emotion,” he told the media after the race. “Of course, it’s sad that it was my last two-man race, but that’s something I’ve known for a long time, and I think I’m just glad I made the decision so early so I can enjoy it all one last time.” He continued, “I stood up there and thought to myself: ‘Awesome, I get to race down here one more time, and in an Olympic race no less. Sure, I would have loved to have it at Königssee, but now with the final here, that it’s all worked out like this… it’s absolutely amazing.'”
For Friedrich, the two-time defending Olympic gold medalist coming into the race, all he could do is shake his head at the dominance of the winners.
“Hansi and Georg’s overall performance is simply excellent; they’ve been so dominant in the two-man boat all year, which is why they deserved to win here.”
Behind Lochner and Friedrich, there was a battle for bronze that was shaping up overnight.
Adam Ammour and Alexander Schaller entered the third heat just a tenth of a second ahead of USA’s Frank Del Duca and Josh Williamson, who had a pair of skiddy but quick runs to enter the overnight in fourth place.
In the third heat Ammour put down a run that nearly matched his German teammates, while Del Duca’s third effort was fourth quickest but three tenths off the pace of Ammour’s.
Del Duca finally stuck the landing in the fourth heat. His drive was the third quickest of the heat, and quicker than Ammour’s effort. But it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap as Ammour took bronee, with Del Duca a solid fourth.
“These are the first Olympic Games for both of us,” Ammour said after the race. “To come away with a medal from the first race is, I think, something indescribable!”
For Del Duca, the fourth place finish was a great one, but also a bit of “what could have been.”
“I wish we did that fourth run four times,” Del Duca told the media after the race. “It is very bittersweet because this is a good result, and four years ago, we’d be backflipping with joy. But I know that we’ve worked really hard, and that we have the potential to medal.”
In possibly the biggest surprise of the Olympic bobsled program thus far, Mihai Tentea and George Iordache put down the third quickest heat in the second heat to move into fifth overnight. Tentea’s driving kept the duo in the top five throughout the final two runs for Tentea’s best ever finish in an Olympics, World Championships or World Cup event.
Switzerland’s Michael Vogt and Amadou Ndiaye put down four very consistent runs to slide into sixth place.
Great Britain’s Brad Hall teamed up with Leon Greenwood for the third and fourth heats after Greenwood replaced Taylor Lawrence. The duo slid to 12th place.
Canada’s Taylor Austin and Shaq Murray-Lawrence slid to 18th place, with Jay Dearborn and Mike Evelyn 23rd in their first Olympics.
For the warm weather nations, Shane Pitter and Junior Harris slid to 22nd in their first Olympics for Jamaica. Edson Bindilatti and Luis Bacca Goncalves slid to 24th for Brazil, while Trinidad and Tobago’s Axel Brown and De Aundre John slid to 25th.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Lochner / Fleischhauer | GER | 1 | 54.68 | 55.22 | 54.89 | 54.91 | 3:39.70 |
| 2 | Friedrich / Schüller | GER | 2 | 55.16 | 55.54 | 55.01 | 55.33 | 3:41.04 |
| 3 | Ammour / Schaller | GER | 3 | 55.12 | 56.02 | 55.03 | 55.35 | 3:41.52 |
| 4 | Del Duca / Williamson | USA | 4 | 55.40 | 55.84 | 55.38 | 55.34 | 3:41.96 |
| 5 | Tentea / Iordache | ROU | 11 | 55.73 | 55.65 | 55.46 | 55.53 | 3:42.37 |
| 6 | Vogt / Ndiaye | SUI | 6 | 55.64 | 55.85 | 55.47 | 55.64 | 3:42.60 |
| 7 | Baumgartner / Mircea | ITA | 9 | 55.58 | 56.00 | 55.49 | 55.60 | 3:42.67 |
| 8 | Kalenda / Miknis | LAT | 10 | 55.68 | 55.75 | 55.64 | 55.61 | 3:42.68 |
| 9 | Treichl / Bertschler | AUT | 8 | 55.89 | 55.76 | 55.62 | 55.74 | 3:43.01 |
| 10 | Wesselink / Franjic | NED | 18 | 55.83 | 56.18 | 55.44 | 55.87 | 3:43.32 |
| 10 | Heinrich / Hauterville | FRA | 13 | 55.75 | 55.89 | 55.75 | 55.93 | 3:43.32 |
| 12 | Hall / Lawrence / Greenwood (3) | GBR | 7 | 55.65 | 55.89 | 55.72 | 56.17 | 3:43.43 |
| 13 | Kim / Kim | KOR | 5 | 55.53 | 56.16 | 55.90 | 56.01 | 3:43.60 |
| 14 | Follador / Rolli | SUI | 12 | 56.17 | 56.09 | 55.87 | 55.68 | 3:43.81 |
| 15 | Rohner / Annen | SUI | 15 | 55.95 | 56.14 | 55.89 | 55.84 | 3:43.82 |
| 16 | Sun / An | CHN | 16 | 56.15 | 56.16 | 55.83 | 56.03 | 3:44.17 |
| 17 | Li / Ye | CHN | 21 | 55.99 | 56.30 | 56.36 | 55.94 | 3:44.59 |
| 18 | Austin / Murray-Lawrence | CAN | 26 | 56.18 | 56.07 | 56.08 | 56.27 | 3:44.60 |
| 19 | Suk / Chae | KOR | 19 | 56.27 | 56.23 | 56.03 | 56.08 | 3:44.61 |
| 20 | Kranz / Tschofen | LIE | 22 | 56.31 | 56.29 | 56.09 | 56.24 | 3:44.93 |
| 21 | Mandlbauer / Nichols-Bardi | AUT | 23 | 56.34 | 56.67 | 56.21 | 2:49.22 | |
| 22 | Pitter / Harris | JAM | 20 | 56.68 | 56.72 | 55.97 | 2:49.37 | |
| 23 | Dearborn / Evelyn | CAN | 14 | 56.74 | 56.59 | 56.45 | 2:49.78 | |
| 24 | Bindilatti / Bacca Goncalves | BRA | 17 | 56.95 | 56.81 | 56.22 | 2:49.98 | |
| 25 | Brown / John | TTO | 24 | 57.22 | 56.97 | 56.86 | 2:51.05 | |
| 26 | Edelman / Chen | ISR | 25 | 57.38 | 57.22 | 57.64 | 2:52.24 |