Eric Franke

Eric Franke
nation	Germany
birthday	16th August 1989 (age 30)
place of birth	Berlin
size	192 cm
Weight	96 kg
job	Sports soldier
Career
position	Pusher
society	BSC Sachsen Oberbärenburg
Trainer	Carsten Köhrbrück Gerd Leopold
National squad	since 2014
status	active
Medal table
Olympic medals 0 × 1 × 0 × World championships 0 × 0 × 1 × European championships 0 × 1 × 0 × Junior World Championship 3 × 1 × 0 × German championships 0 × 1 × 0 ×
winter Olympics silver 2018 Pyeongchang four  Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships bronze 2017 Königssee four  European bobsleigh championships silver 2017 Winterberg two  Bobsleigh Junior World Championships gold 2015 Altenberg two German championships silver 2017 Königssee four
Placements in the Bobsleigh World Cup
Debut in the World Cup December 2014  World Cup victories 5
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Four-man bobsleigh 5 4th 1
last change: February 25, 2018

Eric Franke (born August 16, 1989 in Berlin ) is a German bobsleigh athlete in the position of pusher and former athlete .

Career

Eric Franke is a sports soldier and starts for the BSC Sachsen Oberbärenburg , previously for the SCC Berlin . He is trained by Carsten Köhrbrück and Gerd Leopold . The federal police officer lives in Berlin and has a son. He has been close friends with Florian Kunze since childhood .

Like many other pushers who later switched to bobsleigh, Franke was initially a track and field athlete. As a sprinter specializing in the 100 and 200 meter run , he took part in several German championships. With the relay of the SCC Berlin he won the bronze medal at the German Championships 2010 in Braunschweig with the 4 x 100 meter relay . In 2011 he won the German championship title in Kassel with George Petzold , Maximilian Kessler and Lucas Jakubczyk . In the race over 200 meters he reached the final run and was seventh. In 2012 the SCC relay was runner-up.

Franke started bobsleigh in 2014. He made his first international appearance in La Plagne at the beginning of December 2014 , where he and the pilot Albrecht Klammer immediately finished second behind Simone Bertazzo in a European Cup race in the two-man bobsleigh . After another race in La Plagne with brackets that ended in fourth place, he was first used in the two-man bobsleigh by pilot Manuel Machata a week later at Königssee and finished second, one day later he won his first race in the European Cup with pilot Johannes Lochner . A month later he was back on the road with pilot Klammer, now in both of the first races in the Bobsleigh World Cup . In Altenberg they missed the top ten as eleventh. A week later they both reached this and at the same time narrowly missed the podium in Klammer's second and last World Cup race as fourth. After that Franke had to start again in the European Cup in Winterberg , now with driver Richard Oelsner . They won the two-man bobsleigh, in Franke's first international four-man bobsleigh, they just missed the podium as fourth. These races were also preparation for the 2015 Bobsleigh Junior World Championship in Altenberg, where Ölsner / Franke won the title. The title win was also the qualification for the Bobsleigh World Championships 2015 in Winterberg, where they finished ninth. He made it onto the podium four times in the season's European Cup - always with a different driver.

Franke has been a permanent part of pilot Nico Walther's bobsleigh team since the 2015/16 season . At the first outing, a four-man bobsleigh race in Altenberg at the end of November 2015, Franke and Walther, Marko Hübenbecker and Christian Poser finished second on the podium for the first time. He won the next race at Königssee with Walther, Hübenbecker and Gregor Bermbach . Another win of the season followed in Park City . The 2016 European Bobsleigh Championships in St. Moritz were less successful , where the quartet Walther, Hübenbecker, Poser and Franke finished fifth. At the 2016 Bobsleigh World Championships in Innsbruck , the team with the same line-up missed a medal by one place as fourth. Franke later described this as his bitterest sporting moment.

In the 2016/17 season , Franke initially made few appearances, but was back in the squad again when the season's highlights came. At the 2017 European Bobsleigh Championships in Winterberg, Walther, Kevin Kuske , Kevin Korona and Franke won the silver medal behind the Lochner four-man bobsleigh. In the further course of the season there was another podium finish with a second place at Königssee. The highlight of the season was the 2017 Bobsleigh World Championships at Königssee. Franke was back in the two-man bobsleigh for the first time in a long time and was eighth with Walther. Things went better for both with Kuske and Korona in the four-man bobsleigh, where the team won the bronze medal in a German triple victory behind world champions Lochner and Francesco Friedrich .

The 2017/18 Olympic season began with a win for Walther, Kuske, Poser and Franke in Park City. Two more races were won in Königssee and Altenberg, the team came second in Winterberg and third in Whistler. The weakest result of the season was a fifth place in Innsbruck. The race was also the 2018 European Bobsleigh Championships , in which Walther, Kuske, Poser and Franke finished fourth. Highlight of the season were the Winter Olympics of Pyeongchang . After the first run, Walther, Kuske, Alexander Rödiger and Franke were in third place, which they held until after the third run. Although the worst result of a single run was achieved with the seventh best running time, the Walther-Bob was able to place silver at the same time as the local heroes around Won Yun-jong, who were in second place after the first three runs . For winning the silver medal at the 2018 Olympic Games, he and his bobsleigh team were awarded the silver laurel leaf on June 7, 2018.

Nationally he was runner-up with the Walther Bob 2017.

Web links

Commons : Eric Franke  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Eric Franke in the database of the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Association
• Portrait on the website of the Bobsleigh and Sled Association for Germany
• Portrait on the website of the Walther bobsleigh team
• Olympian from Saxony: Eric Franke
• Results in the athletics database
• Alina Schwermer: Saddled for a medal , in: TAZ from February 7, 2018

Footnotes

1. ↑ Competitive pressure : Berliners want to go to the Olympics as bobsledders - Source: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/28814118 © 2018
2. ^ Olympic participant from Saxony: Eric Franke
3. ↑ Press release of the Office of the Federal President of June 7, 2018: ... On June 7, 2018, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will award the German medal winners of the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games ... with the Silver Laurel Leaf ...