Swiss bob teams capture European, World Cup titles

The Swiss team of Beat Hefti and Thomas Lamparter on Saturday captured the gold medal at the European Bobsleigh Championship, the final World Cup event of the season.

Ivo Rüegg and Cédric Grand of Switzerland only managed a ninth place finish but the result was good enough to land them the overall title.

Switzerland’s Daniel Schmid and Jürg Egger finished third in Saturday’s race, behind German veteran Andre Lange and partner Kevin Kuske.

Hefti and Lamparter were fastest in both runs and finished with a combined time of one minute, 44.01 seconds.

The German team finished 0.11 seconds behind, while Rüegg and Grand were 0.63 seconds back. They finished the season with 1,514 points.

Thomas Florschuetz and Ronny Listner of Germany were second with 1,475. Fellow Germans Karl Angerer and Gregor Bermbach finished another point back in third.

The first- and third-place finishes for Switzerland were an impressive turnaround from a poor performance at a World Cup event in St Moritz last weekend.

Swiss Olympic, the country’s Olympic association, on Saturday announced the teams it would send to the 2010 games in Vancouver.

Switzerland 1 (two-man): Ivo Rüegg, Cédric Grand
Switzerland 2: Beat Hefti, Thomas Lamparter
Switzerland 3: Daniel Schmid, Jürg Egger

Switzerland 1 (four-man): Rüegg, Roman Handschin, Lamparter, Grand
Switzerland 2: Hefti, Egger, Alex Baumann, Christian Aebli

Switzerland 1 (women): Sabina Hafner, Caroline Spahni
Switzerland 2: Fabienne Meyer, Hanne Schenk

swissinfo.ch and agencies