Brad Hall second in Winterberg BMW IBSF World Cup, Hunter Church finishes third
Winterberg (RWH) Bobsleigh pilot Francesco Friedrich (GER) has secured the overall 4-man bobsleigh victory in the 2021/2022 BMW IBSF World Cup. At the seventh of the eight races of the season in Winterberg (GER), the Olympic and World Champion celebrated his seventh victory of the season and has an unassailable lead of 229 points. There are 225 points for a World Cup victory.
This means that Friedrich now has a total of 100 podium finishes in his races in the 2-man and 4-man bobsleigh World Cup in the ten years since January 2012, 65 of them victories. There was one more - first place in a Team World Cup, which was still on the programme at the time - in Innsbruck in 2013.
With Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller as the pusher team, Friedrich was 0.42 seconds ahead of the British team with Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Nick Gleeson and Greg Cackett in Winterberg. For the British it was the third podium finish in the Olympic winter.
0.46 seconds behind Brad Hall, US pilot Hunter Church celebrated his second podium finish in the 4-man bobsleigh World Cup with Joshua Williamson, Kristopher Horn and Charles Volker. In 2020 in Innsbruck, Church was also third.
Maxim Andrianov (RUS) celebrated his best result of the season with Aleksei Pushkarev, Vasiliy Kondratenko and Dimitrii Lopin in sixth place in Winterberg.
Lamin Deen (GBR), with Sam Blanchet, Luke Dawes and for the first time long jump Olympic Champion Greg Rutherford in the team, finished 17th in Winterberg.
In the overall ranking of the BMW IBSF World Cup 2021/2022, Francesco Friedrich (GER, 1575 points) will receive fourth 4-man bobsleigh crystal globe trophy for the overall World Cup victory at the end of the season in St. Moritz (SUI) on 16 January. Justin Kripps (CAN, 1346), who finished fifth in Winterberg with Cam Stones, Ryan Sommer and Ben Coakwell, is second overall before the final. Rostislav Gaitiukevich (RUS, 1280), seventh in Winterberg, is third overall.
For more detailed information including athlete profiles and results please visit ibsf.org. Photos for editorial use can be found at Flickr.©RWH2022
Photos: IBSF / Viesturs Lacis
