Second gold for Friedrich in four-man bobsleigh final

The 27-year-old reigning world champion of two-man and four-man bobsleigh - who earlier in the week was a co-winner of Olympic gold in the two-man bobsleigh final that produced a dead-heat finish – steered his four-man sled to a 0.53 seconds victory for his team including Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis.

After the final heat, he said his team had worked hard to improve during PyeongChang 2018. “They have been some really hard weeks. We have had to work a lot on the sled and a lot with our lines. I can't believe that we made it after such a tough time,” he said.

Dead-heat for silver

Testifying to the closeness of the competition, the second dead-heat result at PyeongChang 2018 saw the silver medal awarded to both the Republic of Korea’s sled piloted by Won Yun-jong, which held a slender margin coming into the final heat, and a second German sled steered by Nico Walther.

Walther’s team including Kevin Kuske, Alexander Roediger and Eric Franke was third-last to run, their 49.58 sec putting them on level pegging with the following team of Won, Jun Junglin, Seo Youngwoo and Kim Donghyun.

Walther expressed his delight after coming from behind to split the silver medal with the ROK team. "Normally I don't like to share anything but the Koreans were too good. They did four great runs and it's nice to share. They are so strong. It's really OK to share this time,” he said.

Won said sharing the silver medal surpassed his team’s expectations. “I couldn’t believe it. It was only in my imagination. I was so happy with the results,” he said.

“We did a lot of preparations and tests over the season, and the preparation was very thorough. That led to good results in the end.”With a session-best final run of 49.51 seconds, Switzerland’s Rico Peter leapfrogged the sled of Canada’s Justin Kripps – who had earlier split gold in the two-man bobsleigh event with Friedrich – to claim fourth place.

The USA sled piloted by Codie Bascue – who contested the Youth Olympic Games at Innsbruck 2012 – finished ninth overall.