Altenberg (RWH) Annika Drazek from Germany, 2018 European Champion and 2016 World Champion, will for the first time team up with pilot Anna Köhler at BMW IBSF World Cup in Altenberg. That was reported by the newspaper Westfalenpost from Hagen.
Anna Köhler is currently seventh in IBSF Ranking and the third best German bobsleigh pilot. With athletes from Canada and the USA she competes for a third Olympic quota place for Germany. So according to the Westfalenpost release, headcoach René Spies decided to support her with Annika Drazek, one of the worldwide fastest push athletes in women’s bobsleigh.
Anna Köhler met the national Olympic standard for PyeongChang by finishing in fifth place at the BMW IBSF World Cup race in Innsbruck (AUT). Specifications for the German team require athletes to achieve two top-three finishes or three finishes in eighth place or higher in the World Cup. After securing two eighth-place finishes in Park City (USA) and Winterberg (GER), Anna Köhler took her final step towards meeting Germany’s criteria by finishing fifth in Innsbruck. The German bobsleigh pilot therefore had extra reason to celebrate after the race, which also saw her win a bronze medal in the European Championships.
However, Anna Köhler’s ticket to the Olympics is not certain just yet: There are still two World Cup races in Altenberg and St. Moritz (SUI) to go before Olympic qualification is determined. The results will decide whether Germany will be one of the two countries permitted to send three women’s bobsleigh teams to PyeongChang. ©RWH2017
Photos: IBSF/Viesturs Lacis
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