From Beijing, CHN
(February 18, 2022) – Like in the two-man bobsled competition a few days ago, Francesco Friedrich will enter the third heat in four-man bobsled as the race leader. However, that’s where the similarities between the two races for gold end.
Friedrich’s advantage in two-man was .15, not insurmountable but certainly a decent lead. In the four-man contest it’s only .03 ahead of teammate Johannes Lochner.
Lochner set the track record on his first run to move ahead of Friedrich by .16 after Friedrich made a few early mistakes in his first effort. On the second run, on deteriorating ice conditions, Friedrich rallied back with a start record-matching 4.92 start and the best run of the heat to pull back ahead, but by just .03.
After the second run Friedrich looked back on his two heats.
“With the second run we were so happy,” he said. “It was an amazing run, we did a great job at the start. In the first run we had too many mistakes but we corrected in the second run.”
Lochner, the race is now a two-heat race for gold.
“Actually, [.03 is] nothing on this track, ” he said. “We count in tenths of seconds, and if you have a mistake, you’re losing a lot of speed and the track is really long, and the down part of the track is nearly straight. So if you’re losing one kilometre per hour, you’re losing tenths to 15 hundredths of a second. So there is actually not much of a difference. For us, the race starts at zero tomorrow.”
Lochner added, “The first who makes a mistake will be losing some more than one-tenths, or maybe two or three-tenths of a second. So I’m excited to see what’s happening tomorrow.”
Justin Kripps will enter the third heat in third place, .36 behind Lochner but .16 ahead of Germany’s Christoph Hafer in fourth place. Kripps’ team gave him the fifth quickest push of the second heat to solidify his spot in third.
Kripps couldn’t find a lot wrong with his team’s effort after two runs.
“It was pretty good execution,” he said. “The boys pushed well, loaded clean and drove pretty well, so I was pretty happy. (We’re) going to look to come out and do the same thing tomorrow (Sunday).”
Kripps added, “we didn’t really make a lot of mistakes, so we’re just going to try to do the same thing, race our race and try to be fast tomorrow.”
If Hafer wants to close out another sweep of the podium for Germany, he will have to both beat Kripps and stay ahead of Latvia’s Oskars Kibermanis. Kibermanis put down the second quickest time of the second heat (behind Friedrich) to move up from seventh place in the first heat to fifth.
Great Britain’s Brad Hall sits in sixth place after two runs, only .13 behind Kibermanis. Afterward, Hall said he was happy with where he sat after two heats.
“A couple of mistakes on the first run,” Hall said. “It wasn’t a bad performance. Sitting in sixth place, I’m quite content with that.”
Canada’s Christopher Spring’s team finds themselves just out of the top ten in 11th going into the third run of competition. Spring entered the second heat in 12th but a clean run moved him up. Teammate Taylor Austin finished the first run in 22nd but despite unfavorable ice was able to move up to 21st, one spot behind Brazil’s Edson Bindilatti in the final qualifying spot for a fourth run.
The United States finds itself solidly in the top 20 and looking to move up in the third run. Hunter Church fell two spots on his second run and finished the day in 13th, one spot ahead teammate Frank Del Duca in 14th, tied with Romain Heinrich of France.
After a mistake in the second run, Church was disappointed in his effort. Brakeman Kris Horn expects the team to rally behind Church on the third run.
“There’s no doubt in my mind he can execute and do what he needs to do to get us where we are going,” Horn said.
Results After Two Runs:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | IBSF Rank | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Friedrich / Margis / Bauer / Schüller | GER | 4 | 1 | 4.85 | 4.82 | 58.29 | 58.71 | 1:57.00 |
| 2 | Lochner / Bauer / Weber / Rasp | GER | 6 | 5 | 4.92 | 4.92 | 58.13 | 58.90 | 1:57.03 |
| 3 | Kripps / Sommer / Stones / Coakwell | CAN | 5 | 2 | 4.92 | 4.91 | 58.39 | 59.00 | 1:57.39 |
| 4 | Hafer / Salzer / Sommer / Schneider | GER | 12 | 11 | 4.99 | 4.97 | 58.60 | 58.95 | 1:57.55 |
| 5 | Kibermanis / Springis / Miknis / Nemme | LAT | 9 | 6 | 4.94 | 4.90 | 58.70 | 58.86 | 1:57.56 |
| 6 | Hall / Lawrence / Gleeson / Cackett | GBR | 8 | 4 | 4.89 | 4.88 | 58.60 | 59.09 | 1:57.69 |
| 7 | Gaitiukevich / Mordasov / Travkin / Laptev | ROC | 7 | 3 | 4.91 | 4.90 | 58.54 | 59.24 | 1:57.78 |
| 8 | Andrianov / Zaytsev / Zharovtsev / Lopin | ROC | 14 | 9 | 4.99 | 5.01 | 58.82 | 59.30 | 1:58.12 |
| 9 | Maier / Stepan / Sammer / Huber | AUT | 10 | 8 | 4.99 | 5.00 | 58.76 | 59.46 | 1:58.22 |
| 10 | Tentea / Dobre / Daroczi / Radu | ROU | 2 | 30 | 5.04 | 5.04 | 58.87 | 59.55 | 1:58.42 |
| 11 | Spring / Sorensen / Giguere / Evelyn | CAN | 15 | 13 | 4.97 | 4.99 | 59.10 | 59.33 | 1:58.43 |
| 12 | Vogt / Rolli / Beieri / Michel | SUI | 11 | 7 | 5.00 | 4.98 | 59.23 | 59.22 | 1:58.45 |
| 13 | Church / Williamson / Horn / Volker | USA | 13 | 10 | 4.95 | 4.93 | 58.91 | 59.70 | 1:58.61 |
| 14 | Heinrich / Lefebvre / Hauterville / Laporal | FRA | 18 | 16 | 4.96 | 4.99 | 59.29 | 59.53 | 1:58.82 |
| 14 | Del Duca / Valdes / Reed / Abdul-Saboor | USA | 17 | 14 | 4.96 | 5.01 | 59.26 | 59.56 | 1:58.82 |
| 16 | Li / Ding / Ye / Shi | CHN | 27 | 32 | 4.97 | 5.03 | 59.31 | 59.55 | 1:58.86 |
| 17 | Sun / Wu / Wu / Zhen | CHN | 25 | 31 | 4.97 | 5.03 | 59.38 | 59.65 | 1:59.03 |
| 18 | Won / Kim / Jung / Kim | KOR | 20 | 19 | 5.05 | 5.05 | 59.45 | 59.60 | 1:59.05 |
| 19 | Baumgartner / Fantazzini / Verginer / Bilotti | ITA | 3 | 24 | 5.07 | 5.07 | 59.36 | 59.72 | 1:59.08 |
| 20 | Bindilatti / da Silva / Jeronimo / Martins | BRA | 1 | 22 | 5.06 | 5.00 | 59.49 | 59.60 | 1:59.09 |
| 21 | Austin / Sunderland / Patrician / Dearborn | CAN | 16 | 12 | 5.08 | 5.02 | 59.67 | 59.81 | 1:59.48 |
| 22 | Dvorak / Sindelar / Nosek / Zalesky | CZE | 21 | 26 | 5.00 | 5.01 | 59.71 | 59.80 | 1:59.51 |
| 23 | Treichl / Glück / Mitterer / Eckschlager | AUT | 22 | 28 | 5.10 | 5.08 | 59.53 | 60.07 | 1:59.60 |
| 24 | Friedli / Fässler / Baraun / Haas | SUI | 19 | 23 | 5.01 | 5.00 | 59.71 | 60.01 | 1:59.72 |
| 25 | de Bruin / Franjic / Franjic / Veenker | NED | 23 | 21 | 5.10 | 5.08 | 59.85 | 60.07 | 1:59.92 |
| 26 | Suk / Kim / Kim / Shin | KOR | 24 | 18 | 5.12 | 5.12 | 59.74 | 60.31 | 2:00.05 |
| 27 | Variola / Mircea / Pagnini / Obou | ITA | 28 | 40 | 4.98 | 5.04 | 60.25 | 60.33 | 2:00.58 |
| 28 | Stephens / Watson / Reid / Wekpe | JAM | 26 | 29 | 5.10 | 5.17 | 60.80 | 61.39 | 2:02.19 |
