Oskars Melbardis second ahead of Nico Walther

Königssee (RWH) Hat-trick for World Champion: bobsleigh pilot Francesco Friedrich is unstoppable in the two-man bobsleigh in the BMW IBSF World Cup 2015/2016, and has taken his third victory in the third race of the season. Pushed by brakeman Thorsten Margis, last season’s World and European champion set a new track record of 49.29 seconds and came in 0.28 seconds faster than the second-placed Latvian team of Oskars Melbardis and Daumants Dreiskens, who were also second in the last World and European Championships. Third place in Königssee went to Nico Walther and Marko Hübenbecker of Germany, 0.73 seconds back.
Justin Kripps of Canada, whose only podium finishes in the two-man bobsleigh were in Königssee, with a victory in the winter of 2013/2014 and third last season, missed the podium by a mere hundredth of a second and came in fourth with brakeman Alex Kopacz – their best result this winter.
Steven Holcomb from the USA, who won the 2012 World Championships in the two-man and took overall victory in the 2007 and 2014 World Cups, and brakeman Frank DelDuca also celebrated their best result to date this season with seventh.
After the third of eight races in the BMW IBSF World Cup 2015/2016, Francesco Friedrich continues to lead the overall standings with 675 points. Oskars Melbardis is in second with 630 points and Yunjong Won, who came sixth in Königssee, is third with 576 points.
Complete results lists showing all race times, overall times and the latest World Cup standings can be found at ibfs.org, via Twitter (@IBSFsliding), on the official IBSF page, and on the IBSF Facebook group. ©RWH2015-2016