Great Britain's chances of winning a Winter Olympic medal in the two-man bobsleigh faded quickly after mistakes from pilot Brad Hall left them outside the top 10 at the halfway point of the competition. Germany were back on top in the sliding competitions, having won all but one event at the sliding centre across bobsleigh, skeleton and luge in Beijing.
Ad/> Pilot Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis have a 0.15-second lead over Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer, with Rostislav Gaitiukevich and Aleksei Laptev third for the Russian Olympic Commitee. Beijing 2022'We don’t want a smaller bobsleigh family' — German pilot funds rival team Austria11/02/2022 AT 13:47 Hall and Nick Gleeson had high hopes for a medal after regularly threatening the podium across the season, but small errors in both of their heats meant they lost time, and they will go into the second day more than four tenths of a second out of the medals.
Friedrich and Margis went into the event as the overwhelming favourites, defending their title from Pyeongchang and on the back of seven straight two-man world titles for Friedrich, six of which were with Margis. They were the fourth pair to go and they set the standard early on with a time of 59.02, a time which ended up being 0.24 seconds ahead of their nearest challengers Lochner and Bauer, also of Germany, by the end of the round.
Hall was also one of those to go early, and although the British sled dipped under one minute, the GB pilot was clearly disappointed as he shook his head once they crossed the finish line, meaning they ended the round 11th but less than three tenths of a second off the medal positions. Barely anything separated Hall from the podium places, meaning the top 11 was stacked with
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