Gold Tied In 2 Man Bobsleigh

Neil Simmons
Feb 19, 2018
3 min read

Francesco Friedrich and Justin Kripps tie in first place to share Olympic gold

Bronze goes to Oskars Melbardis/Janis Strenga of Latvia

In what was a breath-taking finish in the 2-man bobsleigh and for only the second time in Olympic history there are two Olympic champions. After four heats at the Olympic Sliding Centre in PyeongChang it came down to Germany and Canada posting exactly the same time. The German team of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis came charging down the run and crossed the line. Everybody looked up to see the colour of the lights but nothing happened to signal that the Germans had tied with the Canadian team of Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopaca.

This was Canada’s second ever gold in the 2-man bobsleigh which also resulted in a tie for the gold with the Canadian’s and the Italian team of Gunther Huber and Antonio Tartaglia.

The PyeongChang Olympic Sliding Centre thus remains the backdrop for guaranteed sporting drama. At the end of the first day of racing, less than two tenths of a second separated the first three teams, while the gap fell to just 0.09 seconds ahead of the final heat. For the medallists, the result came down to just five hundredths of a second.

In front of several thousand excited spectators, local heroes Yunjong Won/Joungwoo Seo (KOR) ended the Olympic 2-man bobsleigh event in sixth place.

Justin Kripps had this to say at the finish: “Joint gold medallists – that means two extra people are as happy as we are right now! Francesco put down a great time and it was clear that the result would be close. We have been competitors and friends for so many years and I couldn’t be happier.”

“In front of so many spectators, today simply could not have been any more exciting. We really messed up yesterday and things then got stressful. Overnight, I kept going over and over curve two so I didn’t get much rest. We were also really good at the start; without that, I don’t think we would have made it.” Said Francesco Friedrich

Oskars Melbardis of Latvia had this to say: “We are really happy with the bronze medal. The first two runs weren’t that great but everything went a lot better today. It was an unbelievably close race and a fight right to the end!”