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Cheers in four: Francesco Friedrich celebrates gold in four-man bobsleigh with his crew
Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/AP
The National Sliding Center in Yanqing has become something like the 17th German federal state during these Winter Games.
On the final day of the Games,
Francesco Friedrich
won the four-man bobsleigh competition, earning Germany's twelfth gold medal in Beijing.
The athletes got nine of them in the ice channel.
An outstanding record for the bobsleigh and sled association.
Friedrich, who had already led at half-time, drove towards an unchallenged success at the end.
The only one who could have endangered him came from his own camp: Johannes Lochner won the silver medal as in the two-man bobsleigh, bronze went to the Canadian Stephen Kripps.
With the victories in the twos and fours four years ago in Pyeongchang and at these games, Friedrich has set an unprecedented record.
The optimum of four gold medals in just two Winter Games – no one in bobsleigh has achieved that before him.
But it wasn't the only German medals on this last day of competition.
The alpine ski racers, who had previously missed out in Beijing, still made it onto the podium.
In the
team competition
, the DSV quartet only had to admit defeat to the Austrians.
In the team competition, two drivers compete against each other at the same time. Alexander Schmid and Lena Dürr in particular proved to have strong nerves and were in top form.
After victories over Sweden, Switzerland and the USA, the DSV selection made it to the final, where the better overall time decided for Austria in the end.
Third was Norway, which narrowly prevailed against the USA.
Which also meant that US superstar Mikaela Shiffrin actually went without a medal at these games.
The competition was actually scheduled for Saturday.
But strong winds had prevented it from being held and made it necessary to postpone it to Sunday.
There were gusts today as well, but overall the event was regular.
The
curling competitions
were the first to initiate the games 17 days ago, ahead of the opening ceremony.
The last competition was not decided until the final day.
The British won the final against Japan 10:3.
Skip Eve Muirhead had the better strategy with her team for most of the season.
Therese Johaug
is the queen of the cross-country ski run.
The Norwegian also won the
30K
, her third gold of these Games.
On the long distance, the icy wind and temperatures of up to minus 20 degrees gave the runners a hard time. Johaug coped best with it from the start and set himself apart from the competition early on.
The best German was Victoria Carl, the Olympic champion in team sprint, in twelfth place.
After two silver medals and four bronze medals,
the Finnish ice hockey players have won gold
at the Olympic Games for the first time.
In the final, they turned a 1-0 deficit against Russia, holders of Pyeongchang, into a 2-1 win.
Bronze went to Slovakia, who defeated Sweden 4-0 in the "small final".
The Olympic Games in Beijing will then officially end with the
closing ceremony
at 1 p.m.
aha/mfu