| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 January 1990 London, Ontario, Canada |
| Height | 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) |
| Weight | 112 kg (247 lb) [1] |
| Sport | |
| Country | Canada |
| Sport | Bobsleigh |
Alexander Kopacz (born 26 January 1990) is a Canadian bobsledder and the reigning Olympic co-champion in the two-man bobsleigh event. He competed in the two-man event at the 2018 Winter Olympics. [2] Kopacz and pilot Justin Kripps tied with the German team of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis for the gold medal. [3]
Kopacz started his sporting career as a varsity level shot putter at University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. [1] With encouragement from his university coaches he attended a Canadian talent ID camp for bobsleigh athletes in April 2013. [1] Kopacz would start racing later that year with Nick Poloniato on the North American race circuit. The next year he competed with Chris Spring in the 2014–15 Bobsleigh World Cup, his first year in the top level circuit. [1] At the 2015 World Championships Kopacz battled through pneumonia to help push Spring to eighth place in the four-man bobsled. [1] He stepped on the podium for the first time at the World Cup event in Lake Placid, New York, as part of Justin Kripps' four-man team. [1]
During the 2016–17 Bobsleigh World Cup Kopacz missed the first half of the season due to an adductor tear. [1] He would return to the World Championships, again pushing Kripps to a sixth-place finish in the four-man. The next season he and Kripps found their groove, they would earn four podium finishes together in the 2016–17 Bobsleigh World Cup and finish first overall in the World Cup to win the Crystal Globe as overall World Cup champions. [1]
They would carry this momentum into the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In the two-man competition he pushed Kripps to second place through the first two of four runs. In the second day of competition, they were in the lead after three runs. In the fourth and final run they were just a few one hundredths behind Francesco Friedrich of Germany, but in the final run they made up enough time to win gold. In fact the run put them in a tie with Friedrich for the top of the podium. Kripps and Kopacz began celebrating with team, family, and friends. Kopacz said of the gold medal that "within a couple minutes it was a sea of emotion, a sea of teammates and tears from my parents." [4]
He completed his mechanical engineering degree at University of Western Ontario in 2013 and a physics degree in 2018 at University of Western Ontario, and is co-founder of Step Sciences. [1] He contracted COVID-19 in April 2021 and was later hospitalized in London, Ontario; [5] he was one of the participants in a study of long COVID conducted by five medical institutions in Ontario in 2021–22. [6]
Pierre Fritz Lueders is a Canadian Olympic, world and World Cup champion bobsledder who competed from 1990 to 2010. He piloted both two-man and four-man bobsleigh, retiring after the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
Jesse Lumsden is a Canadian Olympic and world champion bobsledder and a retired Canadian football player, who played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders.
Justin Kripps is a Canadian bobsledder and an Olympic champion in two-man bobsleigh following his gold medal win at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Kripps won a silver medal in the two-man event at the 2017 World Championships and a bronze in the mixed team event at the 2012 World Championships. He has competed in the sport since 2006 and has many World Cup podiums. During the 2017–18 Bobsleigh World Cup, he finished the season first in the two-man and overall, to win the Crystal Globe as overall champion.
Kaillie Humphries is a Canadian-American bobsledder. Representing Canada, she was the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion in the two-woman bobsled and the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist with brakewoman Phylicia George. With her victory in 2014, she became the first female bobsledder to defend her Olympic title and was named flagbearer for the Olympic closing ceremony with brakewoman Heather Moyse.
Lyndon Rush is a Canadian retired bobsledder who has competed since 2004. Rush took up bobsleigh after spending five years playing Canadian football for the University of Saskatchewan. He initially trained as a brakeman before switching to driving due to a hamstring injury.
Christopher Spring is an Australian-Canadian 4 x Olympic bobsledder who has competed since 2008. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, he competed for Australia in the two-man event. He switched allegiance to Canada later in 2010 and has since competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics, 2018 Winter Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics for Canada.
Mikaël Kingsbury is a freestyle skier from Quebec. He is the most accomplished mogul skier of all time. He achieved eminence early in his career after earning the 2009–10 FIS World Cup Rookie of the Year award. He is a ten-time FIS Freestyle World Cup title-holder for overall moguls and nine-time title-holder for overall freestyle, owning the records for most men's Moguls World Cup titles and Overall Freestyle World Cup titles. He also owns the records for career World Cup moguls victories with 78, and consecutive Freestyle World Cup event wins with 13. He is the first man to have won both the moguls and dual moguls World Championship events, and has won the most medals at the Freestyle World Championships of any male competitor in history, having won a medal in 13 of the 14 events he has competed in. Kingsbury won the Olympic silver medal in 2014 and 2022, and, at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, he won the gold medal in men's moguls.
Francesco Friedrich is a German bobsledder who has been active since 2006. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, he and his brakeman Thorsten Margis tied with Canada's Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz for the gold medal in the two-man competition. Friedrich also won gold outright in the four-man event alongside Margis, Candy Bauer and Martin Grothkopp, making Friedrich the fifth German pilot to win two-man and four-man golds at the same Games, after Andreas Ostler in 1952, Meinhard Nehmer in 1976, Wolfgang Hoppe in 1984 and André Lange in 2006. At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, Friedrich and Margis again won the gold medal with both sleighs. Friedrich previously competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the doubles and fours and finished in eighth and tenth place, respectively.
Benjamin Coakwell is a Canadian Olympic bobsledder. He is a former Canadian football running back, who played CIS football with the Saskatchewan Huskies.
Thorsten Margis is a German bobsledder.
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The 2018 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event held in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February, with preliminary events in some sports beginning on 8 February. A total of 2,833 athletes representing 92 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated. The games featured 102 events in 15 sports, making it the first Winter Olympics to surpass 100 medal events. Four new disciplines in existing sports were introduced to the Winter Olympic Games program in Pyeongchang: big air snowboarding, mixed doubles curling, mass start speed skating, and mixed team alpine skiing.
Canada competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from February 9 to 25, 2018. It was the nation's 23rd appearance at the Winter Olympics, having competed at every Games since their inception in 1924. Canada competed in all sports disciplines, except Nordic combined. The chef de mission was Isabelle Charest, who was appointed in February 2017.
The two-man bobsleigh competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 18 and 19 February at the Alpensia Sliding Centre near Pyeongchang, South Korea. Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz of Canada and Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis of Germany shared gold after the two teams recorded exactly the same time after four runs. Oskars Melbārdis and Jānis Strenga of Latvia won the bronze medal.
Alysia Rissling is a Canadian bobsledder. In 2015, she was the pilot for the first all-woman team in an official four-man bobsleigh race after the event became gender neutral. She competed in the two-woman bobsleigh event for Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics with Heather Moyse; the pair finished in 6th place.
Cameron Stones is a Canadian bobsledder. He competed in the four-man event at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Ryan Sommer is a Canadian bobsledder.
The two-man competition in bobsleigh at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 14 February and 15 February, at the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh and Luge Track in Yanqing District of Beijing. The event was won by Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis who repeated their 2018 success. Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer won the silver medal, and Christoph Hafer and Matthias Sommer the bronze medal, for each of them the first Olympic medal. This was the only podium sweep at the 2022 Olympics.
The four-man competition in bobsleigh at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 19 February and 20 February, at the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh and Luge Track in Yanqing District of Beijing. Francesco Friedrich, Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer, and Alexander Schüller of Germany won the gold medal, and Friedrich thereby successfully defended his 2018 Olympic title. Germany-2 driven by Johannes Lochner won the silver medal, and Canada-1, driven by Justin Kripps, won the bronze.
