On the first day of the two-man bobsleigh World Cup finals in Sigulda, Latvia, the German bobsleigh pilots achieved a triple success.
The world champion duo Johannes Lochner/Georg Fleischhauer won with two best times in 1:40.37 minutes ahead of Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich with Alexander Schüller. The team was 0.36 seconds behind the winners, who now lead the overall World Cup with a lead of 71 points. The final race of the season on Sunday will decide overall victory. Maximilian Illmann/Joshua Taschen surprisingly finished third in Sigulda, 0.38 seconds behind Lochner-Bob.
On the difficult track at Sigulda, Lochner had a strong first run that put him clearly in the lead. The competition failed in the second round. Friedrich also made mistakes, as did the Brit Brad Hall, who had previously been third, and dropped back to fifth. Young driver Maximilian Illmann took the chance. With the best running time, he pushed himself up to the podium.
Laura Nolte only sixth in the monobob
Previously, monobob world champion Laura Nolte had missed out on winning the overall World Cup. The woman from Winterberg had to settle for sixth place, meaning that the planned attack on Kaillie Humphries, who had been leading with 73 points before the race, was dropped. The American won the race with two best times.
Only Kim Kalicki was able to convince at the first appearance of the German monobob pilots in Sigulda. With a spirited second run, the two-man bobsleigh world champion moved up from sixth to second place. She was 0.44 seconds behind Humphries. For the first time, Qing Ying from China, who shared this place with Canadian Cynthia Appiah, made it to third place. Both were 0.58 seconds behind the winner.
