Whistler (RWH) An Olympic duel for World Championship gold is on the cards at the 2019 BMW IBSF World Championships in the 2-man bobsleigh. After two of four runs at the Whistler Sliding Centre (CAN), World Championship title defender and World Cup overall winner Francesco Friedrich (GER) is currently ahead, with a 0.12 second lead over local hero, Canada's Justin Kripps with Cameron Stones, who set a track record (50.96 seconds) with his first run. In 2018, the two pilots tied for Olympic gold in PyeongChang.
The final day's events (Saturday, March 2 from 5 pm local / Sunday March 3, 2 am CET) will see Nico Walther and Paul Krenz (GER, 0.29 seconds behind) start races three and four in third place. Hot on the heels of the top three are Brits Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson in fourth (0.39 seconds behind) and Oskars Kibermanis/Matiss Miknis (LAT) in fifth place.
Canada's Chris Spring and Neville Wright finished the first day at the World Championships in 2-man bobsleigh in sixth place, tying with the Korean team of Yunjong Won and Youngwoo Seo (KOR). Having placed ninth after their first run, Nick Poloniato and Ben Coakwell (CAN) suffered a crash in the second race.
At the halfway point in the World Championships in 2-man bobsleigh, the top ten is completed by Johannes Lochner and Christopher Weber (GER) in eighth place, and Rudy Rinaldi/Boris Vain (MON) and Maxim Andrianov/Ilya Malykh (RUS) in joint ninth. ©RWH2019
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Justin Kripps/Cameron Stones (CAN), Photo: IBSF / Viesturs Lacis
