The dominance in the ice channel remains one year after the Olympics. With the exception of the skeleton men, all World Championship titles went from St. Moritz to Germany. Bob dominator Friedrich provided the last gold.
Francesco Friedrich grinned happily and was immediately hugged by his pushers. The four-man bob dominator remains on the World Championship throne in the premier class.
With his usual strength at the start, the record world champion raced to gold in St. Moritz. However, it was a difficult work victory, because the Brit Brad Hall took twelve hundredths of a second from him in the third run and put the two-time double Olympic champion from BSC Sachsen Oberbärenburg under enormous pressure.
The 32-year-old from Pirna and his crew, Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schüller, set one fastest time after the other, drove the ideal line in the last run and exuberantly celebrated the fifth title in a row in the big sled – it was his twelfth World Championship title overall. Hall made several mistakes in the last heat and had to share silver with the strong Latvian Emils Cipulis at the same time.
Every detail fits
“We fine-tuned every detail again. New runners, different seating positions. Then every detail was right. The third run was mixed, but the second and fourth were so good that it was enough,” said Friedrich, while his long-time pusher Margis got out of the sled and called loudly to his pilot: “Geil, Dude!”. Barely five weeks after his muscle injury, this title was anything but a matter of course. “We’re almost always under pressure to win, but this time it was special,” emphasized Margis.
Two-man bobsleigh world champion Johannes Lochner, who, like on Saturday, had to change his team and this time put Kevin Korona in the sled for Georg Fleischhauer, who was suffering from a fever, had to console himself with fourth place. “Unfortunately, there was nothing more, now I’m going on vacation and going skiing,” said the Berchtesgadener. Christoph Hafer ended up sixth, Junior World Champion Nico Semmler finished eighth after four races.
In the women’s race, Kim Kalicki and Lisa Buckwitz kept their nerves on the steering cables after Laura Nolte’s fall in the third run and celebrated gold and silver. After the last two silver medals, Kalicki from Wiesbaden finally raced to the world championship title with brakewoman Leonie Fiebig. For Buckwitz it was the first World Cup as a pilot. After bronze in monobob, she and Kira Lipperheide celebrated second place ahead of Kaillie Humphries from the USA. “The last few weeks have been tough,” Kalicki said of a couple of falls before. Fiebig spoke of “sleepless nights and a few ailments” – everything was now forgotten. “If I can speak openly and honestly: I almost puked from the inside out. But I said to myself, Kim, you can do it, just drive normal bobsleigh, that’s enough,” said 25-year-old Kalicki.
The former brakewoman Buckwitz, who switched to the steering ropes with Mariama Jamanka after the Olympic gold coup in Pyeongchang, has now arrived at the top of the world pilots. “It was a long process, it’s also an experience sport. It was difficult years, but it was worth it,” said Buckwitz, adding: “I would do it that way again.”
Source: Stern
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