Two, Men

It was only the fourth time that a country repeated a clean sweep of the podium in the same event at two consecutive Olympic Winter Games. In 1960 and 1964, the USSR won all medals in the women’s 10 km cross-country skiing. Then the GDR and Germany achieved the same feat in the women’s singles in luge in 1984/1988 and 2002/2006, respectively. In bobsleigh events, that was only possible since 2010, when more than two sleds per country were allowed. Therefore, Germany’s medal sweep at Beijing 2022 was the first ever in bobsleigh.

The careers of the two German pilots, Johannes Lochner and Francesco Friedrich started more than 10 years prior, with Lochner often overshadowed by Friedrich, who made his Olympic debut in 2014, with Lochner’s in 2018. Friedrich won his first Olympic gold at PyeongChang 2018, where Lochner placed fifth.

At Beijing 2022, Friedrich won gold in both the two-man and four-man bobsleigh, with Lochner claiming silver in both. Since 2013, both Friedrich and Lochner have shared all world championship titles between them, with Friedrich winning all but one. But in 2026 in Cortina, Lochner’s big moment finally came, when he and his new brakeman Georg Fleischhauer set the fastest times in all four runs and built up a lead of more than 1.3 seconds.

Friedrich and Alexander Schüller, who was already a member of his four-man crew in 2022, secured silver, another half second ahead of the third German sled. Debutants Adam Ammour and Alexander Schaller won the first medal of the next generation of German bobsledders despite placing only 11th in the second run. Friedrich is now the most successful athlete in the two-man bobsleigh and one of five to have won three medals, but the only one with two gold and one silver.

The best non-German team, in fourth, was Frankie Del Duca (USA), one of the American flagbearers at the opening ceremony, and Josh Williamson.

This was Germany’s ninth medal sweep at the Olympic Winter Games, and the fourth in a men’s event. Since 1952, a German, or German-related team, such as the German Democratic Republic (East), or the Federal Republic of Germany (West), had won a medal in the two-man event at every Olympic Winter Games, except for 1956, 1964, 1994, and 2014.

Germany increased their all-time medal haul in this event to 15, putting it just one behind Switzerland (whose best sled finished in sixth in 2026), further extending Germany’s lead in gold medals to seven from five. Another seven medals went to the GDR and four to the Federal Republic.