André Lange | |
Nationality: | German |
Birth Date: | 1973 6, df=yes[1] |
Birth Place: | Ilmenau, Bezirk Suhl, (now Ilmenau, Thuringia, Germany)[2] |
Residence: | Suhl, Thuringia |
Height: | 1.88m (06.17feet) |
Weight: | 1000NaN0 |
Sport: | Bobsleigh (pilot) |
Event: | 4-man, 2-man |
Club: | BSR Rennsteig Oberhof (1993–2010) |
Coach: | Wolfgang Hoppe |
Retired: | 2010 |
André Lange (pronounced as /de/; born 28 June 1973) is a retired German bobsledder and one of the most successful bob pilots of all time. Competing at the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, he has won four gold and one silver medals. Lange originally started his sledding career as a luger, taking up bobsleigh in 1993.
At the 2002 Winter Olympics, Lange won the four-man event with teammates Carsten Embach, Enrico Kühn and Kevin Kuske. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Lange also won gold in the four-man event with teammates Kevin Kuske, René Hoppe and Martin Putze, in addition to winning the two-man event with Kuske. He competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics, winning gold in the two-man and silver in the four-man events.
Lange also won fourteen medals at the FIBT World Championships with eight golds (Two-man: 2003, 2007, 2008; Four-man: 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008), four silvers (Two-man: 2000, 2005; Four-man: 2001, 2009), and two bronzes (Two-man: 2004, Four-man: 2007).
At the Bobsleigh World Cup level, he has won three combined men's championships (2000-1, 2002–3, 2003–4), one two-man championship (2007–08), and four four-man championships (2000-1, 2002–3, 2003–4, 2007–8).
In April 2014 it was announced that Lange would become the head of the Thuringian Winter Sports Centre in Oberhof, which includes the DKB Ski Arena, the Oberhof sledding track, the Kanzlersgrund ski jumps and the town's indoor ski area, following the retirement of the previous head Wolfgang Filbrich that July.[3] In May 2017 he announced that he was leaving this role. In August 2017 the Korea Luge Federation announced that Lange would join the South Korean luge team as a coach in October on a five-month contract to assist head coach Steffen Sartor to help prepare them for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang, South Korea.[4] [5]