Francesco Friedrich won every championship he could in bobsledding this season.
The German great is now a world champion for the 16th time, capping off his seventh four-man world title on Saturday at Mount Van Hoevenberg on the final day of the international bobsled season.
This is the sixth time — all in the past seven seasons — that Friedrich has swept the IBSF Bobsled World Cup season titles in two and four-man, plus swept those races at either the Olympics or the IBSF World Championships that season.
Photo: Reuters
Friedrich finished three runs — one of the scheduled four heats was canceled on Friday because of worsening track conditions as the air temperature rose — over two days in 2 minutes, 44.52 seconds.
Johannes Lochner of Germany was second in 2:44.80 and Brad Hall of the UK was third in 2:45.00. The top US sled was driven by Frank Del Duca, who finished fourth in 2:45.64.
“The biggest thing was just having friends and family here,” Del Duca said after wrapping up worlds on his home track in Lake Placid. “Coming up the outrun and high-fiving them and hearing them cheer was really special. It was a great time.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Friedrich capped another year when he was the best bobsledder in the world, winning medals in all 17 of his major international races (15 World Cups, plus the two-man and four-man events in Lake Placid). He won 10 golds, also best in the world this year, with six silvers and one bronze.
Lochner finished his year with 16 medals — six gold, seven silver and three bronze.
Laura Nolte is the world champion in two-woman bobsledding for the first time, leading Germany’s second consecutive sweep of the world championship medals in that event.
Nolte — a two-time world monobob champion, plus an Olympic gold medalist — and Deborah Levi finished four runs over two days in 3:46.00. Kim Kalicki and Leonie Fiebig were second in 3:46.52, and Lisa Buckwitz and Kira Lipperheide were third in 3:47.46.
Taiwan’s Lin Sin-rong and Liang Yu-chieh finished 18th in 3:54.14 in the two-woman bobsledding. In the previous weekend’s woman’s monobob event, Lin finished 19th in 4:04.88.
It was Germany’s 11th time sweeping the medals in a world championship or Olympic bobsled race. It also happened the previous week in the two-man competition.
Germany claimed 73 of the 103 medals awarded in World Cup and world championship bobsledding this season, winning 28 of 34 races around the world. No other nation had more than nine bobsled medals; the UK and the US both finished the season with that many.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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