Four, Men

Since 2018, when the event was changed from “four, men” to “four, open”, Germany celebrated 1-2 finishes in all three editions, with Korea finishing as joint silver medallists at PyeongChang 2018. After rather disappointing results in 2010 and 2014, this marked a new period of German dominance in bobsleigh.

The pilots of the gold and silver-winning bobs were the same as in the two-man bobsleigh. As in the two-man sled, Johannes Lochner, with his crew of Thorsten Margis, Jörn Wenzel and Georg Fleischhauer, left no doubt about his victory with the fastest times in all four runs. His total of 3:37.57 minutes was more than half a second faster than that of silver medallist Francesco Friedrich. Friedrich’s crew of Matthias Sommer, Alexander Schüller and Felix Straub won silver comfortably with a lead of another half a second ahead of bronze medallist, pilot Michael Vogt from Switzerland. Vogt and his crew of Andreas Haas, Amadou David Ndiaye and Mario Aeberhard came from behind after finishing sixth in run one with still a deficit of 9/100th of a second to bronze after the third run. But his second time in the last run gave him a narrow lead of 4/100th in the total over Germany’s third team with two-man bob silver medallist Adam Ammour, preventing another German clean sweep like in the two-man event. Three sleds, from France, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago, overturned in heat two, underlining that the new track required experienced pilots, although the course was also liked by many.

A unique incident developed around the first participation of a bob team from Israel. They placed last after the first two runs when the Israeli Olympic Committee banned their own team from participating on the last day of competition. The reason for this was an attempt to facilitate a substitution within the team by providing false information. The team wanted to replace a member on short notice, even though Olympic rules only allow substitutions in cases of proven injury or illness. To justify the substitution, one athlete allegedly falsely claimed to be ill and obtained the required medical certificate. However, even before the request was forwarded to the international officials, the athlete confessed to the team management that he was healthy and had only pretended to be ill. The substitute, whom the team wanted to give the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games, would have been the first Druze participant in Israel’s Olympic history.

The most successful athlete in Olympic four-man bobsled is neither Friedrich nor Lochner but German Thorsten Margis. He switched pilots from Friedrich to Lochner for Milano Cortina 2026, thus winning three consecutive golds in the four-man bob (2018, 2022, 2026), plus two golds with Friedrich in the two-man sled (2018, 2022). His gold medal in Cortina made him the most successful Olympic bobsledder of all time and the only one with five gold medals.

The four-man bob can be considered as the most traditional Olympic sliding event, although it underwent two changes, from four/five to four and from “four, men” to “four, open”, which did not really change the character of this event. In the “four, men” and “four, open” combined, Germany won its eighth gold, including seven of the last nine awarded. Their total medal tally comes to 15 (8-5-2), equalling Switzerland with 4-5-6. Adding the medals of the two holdings of the four/five event, both countries count 16 (8-5-3 for Germany, 5-5-6 for Switzerland). They are followed by the United States and East Germany in the medal table.