If there is also a dream team at the Winter Olympics, then the German bobsleigh team must be the number one choice. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the German bobsleigh team won 9 of the total 10 gold medals, becoming the irrefutable king of the "Snow Dragon". Among them, Francesco Friedrich, nicknamed "The King of Snowmobiles", led the team to win the men's four-man snowmobile championship without suspense, becoming the first athlete in history to win a total of 4 gold medals in the double and four-person snowmobile competitions at the two consecutive Winter Olympics.
But if you ask who is the biggest winner of the bobsleigh event at this Winter Olympics, the German team may not be in the first place. Because of the hidden big man BMW behind them, they finally achieved the coverage of this year's bobsleigh project - the only women's single bobsleigh gold medalist who fell on the side was Kaillie Humphries, a Canadian star who represented the United States this time, and BMW was not only a partner of the Canadian Winter Olympic delegation, but also provided equipment for the American bobsleigh team.
Olympic women's singles bobsleigh champion Kelly Humphries
Counting the 9 gold medals taken by the German bobsleigh team, BMW actually won 10 gold medals at the Winter Olympics, a figure that should allow them to rank third in the Winter Olympic gold medal list, after Norway and Germany.
Equipment has a great impact on the performance of the snowmobile project,
Some people even want to buy second-hand ones
Compared with the extremely dangerous steel frame snowmobile project, the snowmobile is the one with the highest equipment requirements in the three skiing projects, and the representative teams of various countries with gold rushing plans in this project have extremely high requirements for the snowmobiles they use. Backed by top car groups such as BMW, the German bobsleigh team also has an inherent advantage in this regard.
How exaggerated are the Germans' superiority in this regard? In the men's four-man snowmobile race at the Winter Olympics, the Canadian team led by Justin Kripps wanted to stop the aforementioned Frederick from making history, but eventually lost and won a bronze medal. Interestingly, when Canadians pushed their snowmobiles on the tracks at the Yanqing National Bobsleigh Center, they used a "used snowmobile" – the previous owner was Frederick himself, and he even steered the car to win the gold medal in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018.
The German team currently has an overwhelming advantage in the bobsleigh event
In particular, Klips and Friedrich shared the gold medal in the men's double bobsleigh with exactly the same results at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Selling their used snowmobiles to their direct competitors was thanks to the Germans.
So it's not uncommon to go to eBay and buy a snowmobile that once won an Olympic gold medal, because that's probably how Cripps does it — take a picture of a baby and use PayPal?
Frederick's shot of this used snowmobile was not unexpected. On the one hand, thanks to the scientific research strength of the BMW Group, the German team has always been ahead of the world in terms of equipment, and their bobsleighs use the material technology and wind tunnel experiments of F1 racing cars, which are world-class in terms of materials, handling and aerodynamics, and are constantly iterating. On the other hand, because the track of each competition is different, BMW's laboratory will also modify the snowmobile according to the characteristics of the track. As a result, the snowmobile that carried Friedrich won the gold medal in 2018 has been in his garage ever since.
BMW has been developing vehicles for the German bobsleigh team
As the best athlete in the field at the moment, Frederick has always been enthusiastic and generous (he and Cripps have a good personal relationship, and will go to the United States for The Clippers wedding in April), plus BMW has provided them with a better car, and this used car is also expensive, and the shot is natural - as a legend of the tropical country participating in the Winter Olympics, the Jamaican team has been participating in the men's four-man snowmobile race, and last November they were still trying to save about 20 Million dollars to buy their own race car and other equipment, and this car doesn't even have an engine and tires — of course, the Jamaican team may have forgotten that they have to pay another $40,000 to transport the car to Beijing.
The BMW Group is a top supplier of bobsleighs
In fact, due to the similarities and similarities with many aspects of the car, the manufacture of snowmobiles has always been inextricably linked to the automobile company. Not only bmw in Germany, the snowmobile of the Italian team also comes from Ferrari's research and development, while McLaren has been supporting the British team in terms of steel frame snowmobiles, and in terms of domestic snowmobiles, we are also entrusted by the First Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology of China and FAW by the State General Administration of Sports to undertake part of the research and development and manufacturing of snowmobiles from 2020.
The start of the R&D work was equally simple and crude: in May 2020, the R&D team introduced a snowmobile from abroad that was about to be retired, which was still of great research value compared to the market version of the snowmobile that could be easily bought in the market.
The snowmobiles independently developed in China use aerospace-grade carbon fiber composite materials. Faw undertook the research and development of the snowmobile chassis part, especially the core components of steering and braking. At the same time, reducing wind resistance is also the core work of snowmobile design and development, and fluid dynamics experiments and wind tunnel tests are the focus of the overall research and development work. When the second generation of snowmobiles was delivered in September 2021, the domestic snowmobiles were already a high-tech product with more than 1,400 national patents.
The domestic snowmobile was just delivered last year
Compared with the start of domestic snowmobiles, BMW has actually been working in this regard for many years, and there are countless successful cases. As mentioned earlier, BMW is not only the equipment provider of the German bobsleigh team, but also the Sled for the American team. Back in Sochi, 8 years ago, the U.S. team tasted the sweetness of working with BMW: that year, the American bobsleigh team won 1 silver and 2 bronze, and the men's double bobsmith team won their first medal in the project since 1952.
The U.S. team and BMW's cooperation dates back to the 2012 Sochi Winter Olympics
Since 2014, the bobsleigh designed by BMW has been an important weapon for the U.S. team to maintain its performance. To this end, BMW's international design center in California has engineers and designers involved, including Michael Scully, an engineer who has participated in the design of BMW's Formula FB02 car, and his first job after taking over is to redesign the appearance of the two-person snowmobile, trying to make the snowmobile more speedable in actual competition, easier to be controlled by the helmsman, more ergonomic design. It also maximizes the advantages of the players.
"Our cooperation with BMW is an important factor in our success. With BMW's support, our snowmobiles will get faster and we look forward to better results. Darrin Steele, CEO of the American Bobsleigh Federation, said.
More than just snowmobiles,
BMW is equally distinguished in track research
Hans-Peter Hannighofer calmly put on his helmet and slipped into his snowmobile, ready to start sliding again on the "Snow Dragon" in Yanqing, Beijing. At this time, he was thousands of kilometers away from Beijing. What allowed him to train so "realistically" was the large 270-degree screen in front of him.
German athletes train through simulators
At this time, a full 18 months before the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the German bobsleigh team has begun to fully prepare for their competition. Traveling to Beijing is obviously unrealistic due to the pandemic, but BMW has made a simulator for their athletes to recreate the track situation of the "Snow Dragon". "This simulator is very realistic, especially in terms of vision. I also didn't expect it to be so realistically restored, looking like I was really involved in the field. When talking about this simulator, Haninhof commented.
The track simulator developed by BMW is equipped with a 270-degree screen
Due to the epidemic, it is obviously unlikely that the "Snow Dragon" will be available for athletes who are not in China for a long time to compete and train, but the simulator developed by BMW has helped their athletes to become familiar with the track to a large extent, so as to take the lead in the race. In the early days of the simulator' development, athletes were only able to simulate a track in southern Germany for training. However, as more and more information about "Snow Dragon" is revealed, the simulator has also added simulation of the "Snow Dragon" track through software updates.
What really affects the quality of the simulation is the collection of data. In addition to the basic track situation, the simulator also needs to collect a number of data such as the skating route and the actual slope of the players to complete the final simulation of the track.
In response, Lochner, a German snowmobile who participated in the Winter Olympics for the second time, said: "This equipment will allow us to mentally prepare the track in advance. If we make mistakes on the track, what exactly can we do to help ourselves get back on the right track? Do we already have Plan B? We had these preparations before we arrived in Beijing. After all, for the "Snow Dragon" track, the host players can generally have hundreds of field slides, while the German team's players only have about 40 times.