MOSCOW, January 27 (R-Sport) – Russia's bobsled coach Pierre Lueders on Sunday accused the Germans of systematically breaking competition rules to generate extra speed.
Leuders' comments come in the wake of another top performance by the world-beating Germans at the world championships in St. Moritz.
Francesco Friedrich and Jannis Baecker won the two-man bob with another German pair taking the bronze. The top Russian performers were Dmitry Trunenkov and Olympic bronze medalist Alexander Zubkov, who finished two seconds behind in seventh.
"Certain crews apparently violate competition rules," Russia coach Pierre Lueders told R-Sport. "We want the races to be held under the unified regulations for everyone, and now they do not correspond with the established rules."
Lueders, the 1998 Olympic champion, also highlighted the differences in the Germans results during the practice runs and official runs.
Trunenkov, meanwhile, was more emotional.
"The Germans don’t play fair," he said. "I’m satisfied with the start in both today’s runs, the ride was great and there were no critical mistakes.”
"But the bob was slower than of opponents. Look, their speed is one-and-a-half kilometers higher than ours. We should think about it and do something."
The Russian team filed an appeal on Saturday stating that the German crews applied an illegal coating to the runners that gave them advantage, but to no apparent avail.
This is not the first time the Russian officials assault the German bobsledders.
A year ago, then-coach Valery Silakov claimed the Germans were allowed to bend the rules because of their cozy ties with the German-based International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
Germany has dominated the sport for decades, taking 27 of all 40 Olympic gold medals since its introduction in 1964 and had similar success in the annual world championships.
Since the East German team of 1968 was stripped of their medals at the Grenoble Olympics for heating their runners to increase their track speed, German sliders have periodically suffered accusations of foul play.
