podcast
Record world champions, World Cup win record holders and faces of German bobsledding: Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis have had an impressive career. The focus of the duo is still clearly on the upcoming goals. In the summer special of the winter sports podcast, the two talk about the ongoing preparations for the season, current challenges and the future of bobsledding.
sports show: Francesco Friedrich, you have told us at the microphone in February that you want to start the season better prepared than last year. The summer preparations are in full swing. What is the current situation?
Francesco Friedrich: Everything looks fine. We pushed pretty well on our home track in Riesa. We train there in the summer and push a frame that looks like a bobsled, but runs on rails. Things are going pretty well there.
Last season was a bit difficult because of your injury. Is that still in the back of your mind or do you check it off directly?
Friedrich: You have to tick that off. That just happened, it was a muscle fiber tear, but it healed completely. That’s why I was able to start training again in May. Of course, the leg didn’t perform as well as the left leg at the beginning. But that’s now completely balanced and I don’t notice any difference anymore.
You once said Bob is one third start, one third ride and one third material. What does this distribution look like in summer training? Is this different from winter?
Friedrich: You do the training anyway, but that’s the main task in the summer. And that’s the main task in winter too, but then there’s also the material history. In summer we take care of our bodies all day long.
In the past you have often expressed concern about the future of bobsleigh – why?
Friedrich: It’s generally the case that, with the exception of football, there aren’t enough athletes. And we are a career changer sport. If there are already too few athletes in the sports from which athletes switch to us, then of course fewer will come to us. Then we have the issue of global warming. We are now only starting in November because the energy costs are too high in October. And so we have a lot of points – and we have to be careful that the sport may not exist any more soon.
New tracks are built, some of which are no longer used because the games have always been in utopian regions where no winter sports have been done before. Now we have to see how we can get the entire competitive sport on a sustainable track. I think we’re on the right track there. With Cortina at the next Olympic Games, we are in a winter sports region. And I think that Mr. Bach (IOC President, Anm. d. Red.), with whom we spoke, slowly realized that things couldn’t go on like this.
And marketing is also difficult in bobsleigh …
Thorsten Margis: Yes, that’s classic door-to-door cleaning.
Friedrich: Yes, exactly. It has only happened two or three times that we have received an e-mail that someone would support us. It is much work. If you get to know someone and can inspire them, then a partnership develops. But if someone doesn’t know you at all, it’s very, very difficult.
Series winners: Pilot Francesco Friedrich (left) and brakeman Thorsten Margis
Thorsten, years ago you described yourself as pathologically ambitious. How is that expressed?
Margis: You just make compromises. You focus on what you want to achieve. Other things then take a back seat that would not take a backseat to others. That’s more what I mean by ‘morbidly ambitious’. But my environment knows that – and when it comes to the Olympic Games, then the plan is set and then there is nothing else.
Friedrich: In competitive sports, the amount of time that the body and mind can perform is really limited. And if you don’t use the time 110 percent, you’ll probably get really annoyed later on.
Margis: I’m also sure that we wouldn’t be celebrating these successes if we weren’t like that. I’ve seen that happen to many people who were far more talented than I was. But then they didn’t make it. And so you have to work hard. I’m quite good, but there are many who have more talent and might have been better, but maybe there was a lack of attitude.
Friedrich: Which (Johannes Lochner, note d. editor) is also a gifted pilot. But at the climax, I mostly had the momentum on our side. But in terms of driving talent, I think Hansi is way ahead of me. I always work that out.
Margis: Actually, Hansi should have won the Olympic Games in Beijing. But in the moments when it mattered, we bent it back.
What are your goals for the rest of your career?
Margis: I have the wish that we now rock everything up to Cortina for three years without an injury (laughs).
Friedrich: You look from year to year. Next season we have the World Championships in Winterberg. This is another huge highlight for us. Next year we have the World Championships in Lake Placid, where things are very different again. The view goes all the time to Cortina (to the Olympic Games 2026, note. editor), but you have the two big sections in between.
And double gold would be nice again at the Olympics, right?
Friedrich: In any case. And hopefully with lots of family members, friends and sponsors. With everyone who has supported us over so many years. Because every hand that helped at some point was important all along.
More winter sports in the summer special
Missed the last episode? The 17-year-old Nordic combined athlete Nathalie Armbruster was a guest in the summer special of the winter sports podcast in June – and spoke about her outstanding season during rollerski training.