Beijing 2022 Bobsleigh: Athletes to watch as Francesco Friedrich defends two-man crown

The men’s two-man bobsleigh competition begins at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Monday (14 February) at Yanqing National Sliding Centre, with heat one starting at 20:05 local time.

Heats three and four are on Tuesday with the medals being decided after heat four, which is scheduled to start at 21:50.

At Beijing 2022, the two-man competition is held over four runs called "heats" on two consecutive days, with two heats per day.

Results are calculated by adding the times of all competition heats together, with the lowest aggregate time winning. Only the top 20 sleds will take part in the last heat.

At PyeongChang 2018 there was a rare dead heat for gold with Germany's Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis sharing gold with Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz of Canada.

Kripps has a new brakeman in Cam Stones, but Friedrich and Margis remain together as they bid to add another Olympic title to their five world crowns as a duo.

Read on for some of the athletes to look out for.

Friedrich is the undisputed king of bobsleigh and the man to beat in Beijing.

The reigning gold medallist in the two-man and four-man bob, Friedrich has no fewer than 13 World Championship titles to his name including the last seven in a row.

His last world title was with Alexander Schueller, but Margis is back to push in the defence of their title.

Friedrich's Olympic debut at Sochi 2014 coincided with Germany's worst bobsleigh performance in half a century, but he has since established himself as one of the all-time greats of the sport.

He told Olympics.com, "I give my best in every race, it’s so much fun for me. At the start of my career, records didn’t interest me.

"But now that we are getting better, you often look at the records (as