Local hero Nico Walther of Germany has celebrated his second 4-man bobsleigh win of the season in front of a home crowd at the BMW IBSF World Cup race in Altenberg. Together with his brakemen Kevin Kuske, Christian Poser and Eric Franke, the World Championship bronze medallist scraped a 0.05-second lead over Francesco Friedrich with Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis after the race’s two heats. While World Champion Friedrich only managed fourth place after the first heat, he went on to finish over one tenth of a second faster than the rest of the field on his second run.
The Latvians Oskars Kibermanis/Janis Janssons/Matiss Miknis/Intars Dambis (0.24 seconds back) finished in third.
The challenging German track proved troublesome for some nations, including the Swiss number one sled piloted by Rico Peter crashed out in the first run.
Great Britain had two sleds racing, Lamin Deen and his crew achieved an equal 10th place finish alongside Italy with Brad Hall and crew achieving a 15th place finish in a field of 23 sleds.
After the sixth of eight races, Johannes Lochner (GER, 1,235 points) continues to lead the overall standings in the 2017/2018 BMW IBSF World Cup following his fifth-place finish in Altenberg. Nico Walther (GER, 1,196) has closed the gap on his team mate to just 39 points after his victory in the Altenberg leg. Ahead of the last two World Cup races this winter, Canada’s Justin Kripps (1,156) is third overall after finishing fourth in Altenberg.
The World Cup now moves onto the famous track in St Moritz for the final race in the Olympic Qualification series.
RacerReady will be reporting the results and views from the world cup races immediately the action finishes.
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