Olympic Champion Friedrich defends overall lead in the BMW IBSF World Cup
Lake Placid (RWH) Justin Kripps of Canada celebrates his first victory as pilot in the 4-man bobsleigh at the BMW IBSF World Cup. Alongside teammates Ryan Sommer, Cameron Stones and Ben Coakwell, the Canadian jumped from fourth place into the lead after his second run. According to the results of the first run, it seemed that another team was poised to take the top spot on the podium in Lake Placid: Having brought Monaco its first Olympic medal with bronze at the 2012 Youth Winter Olympics, Rudy Rinaldi missed his chance to make sporting history in Lake Placid. The surprise leader after the first race - as the first Monegasque ever - he suffered a crash as the last starter in the final race, causing him to drop to 19th.
In the seventh and penultimate World Cup of the season, Oskars Kibermanis and his team, comprising Matiss Miknis, Arvis Vilkaste and Janis Strenga (LAT, 0.07 seconds behind), secured second place. Maxim Andrianov finished in third (0.13 seconds behind), giving him his first position on the podium. Together with Aleksey Zaytsev, Vasiliy Kondratenko and Ruslan Samitov, the Russian came in third after previously finishing in fourth place three times in Lake Placid.
With his IBSF BMW World Cup début, Hunter Church (USA), alongside teammates Kyler Allison, Christopher Kinney and Kyle Wilcox, landed in eighth place in front of his home crowd.
Lake Placid saw Olympic Champion Francesco Friedrich (GER) miss out on the podium for the first time in the post-Olympic winter, coming in fourth. Nevertheless, the World Champion was able to maintain his lead in the overall standings with 1502 points. Oskars Kibermanis (LAT, 1424) heads to the final in Calgary (CAN, 22nd - 24th February) in overall second place. European Champion Johannes Lochner (GER, 1405), seventh place in Lake Placid, is in third place overall.
Further information, the World Cup results and the latest overall standings are available at ibsf.org. ©RWH2019
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