The German tandem of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt failed to win gold in the double bobsleigh for the first time since their Olympic appearances.
At the 2026 Olympic Games, the men's double bobsleigh competition ended in a sensational finish: the German duo of Tobias Wendl/Tobias Artl, who had won gold at three consecutive Olympics since 2014, finished in third place. The Italian tandem of Emmanuel Rieder and Simone Kainzwaldner won gold, only 0.068 seconds ahead of their closest pursuers from Austria, Thomas Stoj and Wolfgang Kindl.
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On the way to the dream Olympic gold, the duo of Rieder and Kainswaldner encountered obstacles. In particular, in the 2025/26 season, the experienced duo, competing together for the eighth season in a row, did not even finish on the podium. Moreover, at the 2025 World Championships in Whistler, the Italians finished 14th – their worst result at a major international competition in many years. Only at the end of the season did Emmanuel and Simone manage to get close to the podium: at the final stage of the World Cup in Yanqing, China, they stopped one step away from the bronze, finishing just 0.161 seconds behind third place.
“We tried a lot this season, but unfortunately the changes we made to the sled did not have a positive effect, but we learned a lot from this experience. So we had an idea: we took part in building our sled from scratch and realized our ideas. This is a cause close to my heart. I have always dreamed of trying my hand at something myself and learning how to build a sled from scratch,” said Kainzwaldner before the start of the 2026 Olympics.
In the end, the changes made to the sled of Emmanuel and Simone paid off and brought the Italians their first “gold” of the Olympic Games. Moreover, this triumph was the first for Rieder and Kainswaldner at any top-level tournament: so far in the two-sled sled they have only won silver in the sprint at the 2020 World Championships, and at the previous Olympics in 2022 they came sixth.
“After numerous training runs, we were able to take advantage of the home field,” said leader Rieder. And trailing Kainzwaldner added: “It also means that all the hard work in the workshop has paid off. We completely redesigned our sled over the summer.”