Who doesn’t want to slide down there? At the Olympics, the bob elite plunges into the new “Yanqing National Sliding Center”
At the weekend, the first of two racing weekends in the Bobsleigh World Cup will take place in the Winterberg ice channel in North Rhine-Westphalia. At the beginning of January the bob elite will come together for a second time. This is not unusual for bobsledders. The number of artificial ice rinks around the world is not great, people meet again and again in the same places. There are also two separate World Cup events this season in Altenberg in Saxony.
The Königssee is not on the list of venues this season. The artificial ice rink there, the oldest in Germany, was badly damaged in July by a landslide caused by heavy rainfall. The Bavarian state government has promised reconstruction, but this can take years. The slopes around the railway have to be secured, and numerous tests by the environmental agency are pending.
The athletes taking part in the World Cup for the Bobsleigh and Sleigh Association for Germany (BSD) did not let themselves be disturbed by this. They have dominated the races since the World Cup kick-off in Innsbruck-Igls at the end of November. They won eight out of nine competitions. Only the American bobsleigh icon Kaillie Humphries was able to beat the German competition in the two-man bobsleigh competition in Altenberg last weekend. Laura Nolte from BSC Winterberg and her pusher Deborah Levi, who had won the first two World Cup races, landed in second place. Like many pushers, Levi comes from athletics. Your job is to get the bob moving. The rest is done by the pilots at speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour.
In the men’s category, the most successful bobsleigh pilot of all time, Francesco Friedrich from BSC Sachsen Oberbärenburg, is in a class of his own in this World Cup too. He was able to win all races in both the two-man and four-man bobsleigh. The 31 year old from Saxony is eleven times world champion and two times Olympic champion. Altenberg is his home railroad.
In the mid-1970s, the GDR bobsleigh athletes training in Altenberg overtook their West German competitors from Winterberg and Königssee. After the connection, Rudi Lochner (WSV Königssee) and Christoph Langen (SpVgg Unterhaching), two pilots from the west, were the most successful German bobsledders. In the four-man bobsleigh, however, there was strong competition from Wolfgang Hoppe from WSV Oberhof 05 (formerly ASK Vorwärts Oberhof). Years of dominance followed by André Lange in the two-man bobsleigh and Maximilan Arndt in the four-man bobsleigh for the BSR Rennsteig Oberhof. Then came the time of Francesco Friedrich.
For women, only two-man bobsleighs are used in the World Cup. This has been part of the program since 1994. One of the first successful bobsleigh pilots was the luge athlete Susi Erdmann, who was trained in Oberhof and later started for WSV Königssee. Only later did women specialize too. Sandra Kiriasis from RSG Hochsauerland became multiple world champion in the 2000s. At present, alongside Laura Nolte, Kim Kalicki, who started for TuS Eintracht Wiesbaden 1846, is Kaillie Humphries’ strongest competitor. Humphries switched from the Canadian to the US bobsleigh association in 2018 after long arguments.
The highlight of the season for bobsledders is the Olympic Games in Beijing. Outside of major events, bobsleigh is not given much attention. Even the World Championships pale in comparison with the Olympic Games.
A brand new ice channel, the “Yanqing National Sliding Center”, was built in Yanqing for the 2022 Games. There are no official figures, but the construction is said to have cost more than two billion euros. The World Cup races in March 2021, intended as a dress rehearsal for the Olympics, had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic. The first international test races did not take place until the end of October. Friedrich set track records in both the two-man and four-man bobsleigh. Laura Nolte won the women’s two-man bobsleigh. For the first time ever, a women’s monobob competition is part of the program for the Olympic Games.
Friedrich was very impressed with the new lift. Compared to the dpa He explained: “In the middle of the Xiaohaituo Mountains, it is a highlight for both driving and tourism.” He is not deterred by the corona rules that can be expected during the Olympic Games: “Anyone who is most relaxed wins anyway, who is up can adjust all the circumstances and doesn’t hum about it. “
The expectations for the games are high in the German bobsleigh riders’ camp. After the disaster in Sochi in 2014, where non-competitive sleds were without a medal, they won gold three times in Pyeongchang: Friedrich in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh, Mariama Jamanka (BRC Thuringia) in the two-man bobsleigh. These medals have to be defended against the competition from the USA, Canada and Latvia.
