Bobsleighibsfsliding #altenberg #baumgartner #friedrich
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The tracks change but the final result remains the same. Germany continues its supremacy in the bobsled World Cup, winning all the successes also in the third season round staged this weekend on the Altenberg track.
Sunday 6 January 2019 7 minutes reading time
The Teutonic team between Sigulda and Winterberg had won all the races in the program, has reiterated its supremacy also on the gut of Saxony where the Olympic champions Francesco Friedrich and Mariama Jamanka gave Germany the ninth success on nine races held this season .
On the home track the Pirna champion kept his unbeaten in the two-man bob despite a first descent anything but perfect. Friedrich accompanied on the occasion by the brakeman Thorsten Margis had indeed closed the first run "only" in third place behind Justin Kripps and Oskars Kibermanis.
In the second heat the four times world champion of the specialty and Olympic champion in charge was quickly redeemed by trimming in one run the beauty of 45 cents to the first of the opponents, closing with a margin of 37 cents on Kripps and centering the third success in as many races disputed. The podium was completed by Latvian Kibermanis who preceded Nico Walther and the surprising Frenchman Romain Heinrich at the best result of his career in the World Cup.
Friedrich then repeated the following day picking up the second consecutive win in the four-man bob together with the brakes Grothkopp, Margis and Bauer. Compared to the two-man rehearsal, in the four-man bobsleigh the twenty-eight of Saxony has shown a clear superiority towards the other contenders signing in the heats scheduled the best lap times. Friedrich preceded the Baltic Kibermanis, now second behind German in the world cup standings, and compatriots Walther and Lochner.
In the women's field, a comeback victory for Mariama Jamanka and Annika Drazek who, thanks to a very good second descent, took the second win of the season. The Olympic champion preceded on the podium of 31 cents the Canadian Christine De Bruin (at the first place in the top three in the World Cup n.d.r.) and the American Elana Meyers-Taylor still far from the best form. Fourth place with a little 'regret for the British Mica McNeill leader of the race after the first heat, which has run into a second heat anything but clean.
In the first races of the new year the first encouraging signs for the blue movement in the European Cup circuit came. In Winterberg, in the third round of the cadet series, Patrick Baumgartner managed to bring the Italian four-man bob to the second step of the podium twice.
The South Tyrolean rider in particular in the first race played together with the brakes Lorenzo Bilotti, Alex Verginer and Simone Fontana came only 33 cents from the highly favored hosts Hafer-Hammers-Schneider-Sommer. In the next race Baumgartner took to the track with the same braking team except for Bilotti replaced by Alexi Atchori Essoh. On this occasion the Azzurri suffered a major gap (76 cents n.d.r) from the usual German crew piloted by Hafner.
For Baumgartner, the young Olympic champion in Innsbruck 2012, the best results of his career in the cadet circuit have arrived and above all the South Tyrolean driver has reached very few points from the top of the general classification. Beyond the double podium, the Italians' performance is definitely encouraging above all for the regained competitiveness in the push phase (authentic Achilles' heel for the Azzurri in the last few years) which goes to reward the recruiting work carried out by the Italian technical staff in the last summer.
There is still a bit 'of way to do instead in the bob two, where Baumgartner still can not be the game for the top positions in the standings. The South Tyrolean rider paired with Alexi Atchori Essoh grabbed the sixteenth place yesterday. Twenty first and twenty-second position instead for the other two Italian crews registered for the competition, composed respectively by Costantino Ughi and Marco Boni and by Mattia Variola and Alessandro Fierro in the race won by the Germans Dennis Pihale and Lukas Frytz. Among the women, the success of the Teutonic Laura Nolte in the test on Saturday and the Romanian Andreea Grecu in today's.
The next round of the bobsled European Cup is scheduled for 7 days on the Igls track just outside Innsbruck, while the World Cup will take place at Koenigssee.
IBSFSLIDING #ALTENBERG #BAUMGARTNER #FRIEDRICH
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