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02/16 03:59 CST Germany's Johannes Lochner starts fast in Olympic 2-man bobsled race Germany's Johannes Lochner starts fast in Olympic 2-man bobsled race By TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) --- The two-man bobsled competition at the Milan Cortina Games is four runs over two days, the same format the event has used for nearly a century. Germany's Johannes Lochner might have ended this year's event in exactly 54.68 seconds. That was Lochner's time in the first run at Cortina d'Ampezzo on Monday morning, giving him a lead of 0.44 seconds over his closest competitor --- the biggest after-one-heat lead in the Olympic two-man race since Erich Schrer was up by a half-second at the Lake Placid Games in 1980. The second heat is later Monday, and the final two runs are Tuesday. Germany also had second and third place after the first run, with Adam Ammour finishing in 55.12 seconds and reigning world and Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich --- who has been looking up at Lochner all season in the World Cup rankings --- getting down the track in 55.16 seconds. The top non-German after one run was U.S. pilot Frank Del Duca, whose time was 55.40 seconds. Del Duca, one of the two U.S. flag bearers entering these Olympics, is driving the only two-man sled the Americans have in the competition, after officials would not let fellow U.S. pilot Kris Horn compete because he finished four --- one shy of the minimum --- out of seven World Cup races this winter. Horn will race in the four-man event that starts later this week. Lochner's lead is the seventh-largest after one run in Olympic two-man history; most of the others came in the earliest days of racing, when the sport was far less technical. The inaugural two-man Olympic race at Lake Placid in 1932 saw a lead of 5.65 seconds after one heat --- and that sled, driven by Switzerland's Reto Capadrutt, didn't even end up winning. U.S. pilot Hubert Stevens, racing with his brother Curtis as his brakeman, rallied from a deficit of 7.22 seconds after one run to win that gold medal. Lochner is in what he says is his final season, and won the World Cup two- and four-man overall titles this winter. He won medals in all 14 World Cup races --- nine gold and five silver, never finishing worse than second. And in two-man, he was especially dominant with six wins in seven races. Friedrich is at these games trying to become the first five-time gold medalist in Olympic bobsled history, after sweeping the two- and four-man races at Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022. ___ AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

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