Favourite wins in St Moritz
German bobsleigh star Christoph Langen lived up to his billing as hot favourite to win Saturday's World Cup two-man race in the Swiss resort of St Moritz.
Swiss fans did have something to cheer though with Christian Reich finishing in second place, 18 hundredths of a second behind the German world champion.
“I couldn’t expect any more,” said Reich after climbing into second place with a fast second run. “My main priority was to improve my chances of booking a place at next month’s Winter Olympics.”
Martin Annen was the next best Swiss, finishing in fourth place behind overall World Cup leader Todd Hays of the United States. There was disappointment though for Reto Götschi who missed out on sixth place by one hundredth of a second and will not now be able to contest next weekend’s European Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Annen, Reich and newly crowned Swiss two-man champion Ivo Rüegg will represent Switzerland at the Italian event, which also counts towards the World Cup standings. Ivo’s cousin Ralph will take part in the four-man competition along with Annen and Reich.
Saturday’s leading two-man results:
1. Christoph Langen/Marco Jakobs (Germany) 127″68. 2. Christian Reich/Steve
Anderhub (Switzerland) + 0″18. 3. Todd Hays/Garrett Hines (USA) + 0″39. 4. Martin Annen/Beat Hefti (Switzerland) + 0″61. 5. Rene Spies/Franz Sagmeister (Germany) + 0″66. 6. Andre Lange/Kevin Kuske (Germany) + 0″84. 7. Reto Götschi/Thomas Keller (Switzerland) + 0″85. 8. Pierre Lueders/Ken LeBlanc (Canada) + 0″93.
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