Germany on Tuesday became the first country to sweep a podium at the Beijing Olympics, winning all three medals in the two-man bobsled competition.
Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis won the gold medal, completing four runs in a cumulative time of 3 minutes 56.89 seconds. Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer took 0.49 of a second longer and won silver, and Christoph Hafer and Matthias Sommer finished 1.69 seconds behind for the bronze.
It was the second consecutive gold medal in the event for Friedrich and Margis, who tied with a Canadian team for first place at the 2018 Olympics. This time, they were the only team to break the 59-second mark in any run, completing their third run in 58.99 seconds.
The result also reinforced Germany’s dominance at the Yanqing National Sliding Center, where Germany swept the four luge events and then added two more golds in skeleton. So far at the Games, Germany has failed to medal in only one sliding event, the women’s monobob.
Podium sweeps are rare at the Olympics, though more frequent in some sports than others. For instance, there have been only two in figure skating — Sweden in 1908 and the United States in 1956, both times in men’s singles — but more than 80 in track and field.
Germany’s sweep on Tuesday was the first in the nearly century-long history of Olympic bobsledding.
“It’s a team victory,” Sommer, one of the bronze medalists, said afterward. “We work together. We tested the sleds and the runners. It’s a victory for Germany.”
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