2014/2015 FIBT World Cup - Two-Man Bobsled

From La Plagne, FRA

The La Plagne bobsled track seems to lend itself to some close racing, and the two-man race in Race 6 of the FIBT World Cup was no different.

Coming into the second run, Francesco Friedrich had a .09 advantage over Swiss slider Beat Hefti, but only .15 back to sixth place. The German would need a clean and fast second run to take gold in the European Championship race. Friedrich would put down a second solid run, just edging Oskars Melbardis by .04.

Beat Hefti came into the second run in second place, but a un-Hefti like run dropped the Swiss pilot back to fifth. Taking advantage of that run was teammate Rico Peter, who took bronze, while Alexander Kasjanov took fourth, ahead of Hefti in fifth.

Steven Holcomb led the way for the Americans with an eighth place run. Holcomb’s drives were excellent, making up for relatively slow push times. Nick Cunningham finished 11th and Codie Bascue 17th to round out the American effort.

Justin Kripps finished tenth for the Canadians, while Chris Spring took 18th. Great Britain saw two rookies take to the track, with Bruce Tasker leading the way in 15th. Teammate Bradley Hall finished 20th.

Results:

Pos	Names	Nation	Bib	Run 1	Run 2	Total
1	Friedrich/Grothkopp	GER	7	58.99	59.49	1:58.48
2	Melbardis/Dreiskens	LAT	5	59.11	59.41	1:58.52
3	Peter/van de rZijde	SUI	1	59.13	59.56	1:58.69
4	Kasjanov/Pushkarev	RUS	2	59.26	59.60	1:58.86
5	Hefti/Baumann	SUI	10	59.08	59.81	1:58.89
6	Won/Seo	KOR	6	59.14	59.89	1:59.03
7	Walther/Hübenbecker	GER	3	59.13	59.91	1:59.04
8	Holcomb/Valdes	USA	9	59.26	59.87	1:59.13
9	Lochner/Bluhm	GER	11	59.37	59.94	1:59.31
10	Kripps/Barnett	CAN	8	59.48	59.92	1:59.40
11	Cunningham/Wickline	USA	12	59.67	59.74	1:59.41
12	Costerg/Heinrich	FRA	17	59.76	59.77	1:59.53
13	Kibermanis/Leiboms	LAT	4	59.67	59.92	1:59.59
14	Rinaldi/Vain	MON	29	59.44	60.29	1:59.73
15	Tasker/Simons	GBR	27	59.81	59.93	1:59.74
16	Zakharov/Antukh	RUS	19	59.64	60.21	1:59.85
17	Bascue/Victorian	USA	13	59.74	60.20	1:59.94
18	Spring/Kopacz	CAN	14	59.76	60.27	2:00.03
19	Andrianov/Mokrousov	RUS	16	59.99	60.07	2:00.06
20	Hall/Williamson	GBR	28	59.99	60.22	2:00.21
21	Vrba/Havlin	CZE	23	60.00
22	Luty/Tylkowski	POL	25	60.03
23	Maier/Sammer	AUT	20	60.15
24	Wesselink/Brink	NED	21	60.16
25	Kim/Jang	KOR	18	60.18
26	Gschnitzer/Rosa	ITA	22	60.19
27	Poloniato/Violato	CAN	15	60.31
28	Grigore/Moldovan	ROU	24	60.44
29	Radjenovic/Vujanic	SRB	26	61.64