YANQING (AFP) - Francesco Friedrich made history on Sunday (Feb 20) with a second consecutive Olympic bobsleigh double as Germany signed off the Beijing Winter Games having won nine of the ten sliding events.
Friedrich became the first pilot to win back-to-back Olympic golds in two-man and four-man bobsleigh as he repeated his double from Pyeongchang in 2018 - but he insisted it was not as easy as the Germans made it look.
"We're so happy and proud with the result, we did everything we had to do. The boys did an amazing job," said a delighted Friedrich.
The 31-year-old will aim for a hat-trick of double Olympic golds at the Milan-Cortina Games in 2026 - and he hopes the Games returning to Europe will guarantee a few interested spectators.
"Our goal is to do another four years, we want to take a few buses of friends, family and sponsors down to Cortina to finish our careers together," he said.
Having already taken the two-man gold on Tuesday, Friedrich piloted his German crew of Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller to a winning time of 3min 54.30sec.
Fellow German pilot Johannes Lochner, who had won the first heat on Saturday before Friedrich was fastest in the next three, had to settle for silver 0.37sec back.
Canadian pilot Justin Kripps came out on top in his tussle for bronze with Christoph Hafer, finishing just 0.06sec ahead of the German.
Kripps' bronze prevented the Germans again dominating the podium after they had swept the medals in the two-man bobsleigh on Tuesday.
"When you are up against the Germans, when you can beat one of them and get a medal despite that, it means so much, because it's so hard to do," said Kripps.
As Christopher Grotheer accurately put it after dominating the men's skeleton last week, "the Beijing track is a German track".
German racers collected 16 of the 30 medals up for grabs at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre.
"It feels incredible to get on the podium amid such a dominant performance from them," Kripps admitted.
Only victory by United States racer Kaillie Humphries in the inaugural women's monobob stopped the Germans winning every single sliding event.
"Maybe it looks a little bit easy, but it's not really," Friedrich insisted.
"All the German teams work together, which is something we didn't have 10 or 20 years ago. Now are like a small family helping each other against the other nations and that is why we were so strong on this track."
Friedrich's historic feat caps a glorious season for the 31-year-old, who won 14 of the 16 races on the World Cup circuit.
