Manuel Machata (born 18 April 1984) is a German former

bobsled Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobs ...

der who competed from 2005 to 2015. Manuel Machata grew up in Ramsau near

Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps. South of the town, the Be ...

, Germany. He attended the CJD Christophorus high school in Berchtesgaden. After completing high school he joined the sports group of the German army (

Bundeswehr The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: Germ ...

). He became German Junior Champion in both two and four-man and Junior World Champion in four-man bobsled in 2006. Machata started regularly at the European Cup since November 2006 where he won the 2006 and 2007 cups at Königssee and 2007 the four-man in Igls. He was behind

Thomas Florschütz Thomas Florschütz (born 20 February 1978 in Sonneberg) is a German bobsledder who has competed since 2006. He won a silver medal in the two-man event at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. He won three medals at the FIBT World Championship ...

in both two-man and four-man at Königssee 2007 and third in the 2008 two-man championships in Altenberg. He reached second place at the Junior World Championship 2009 at Königssee in both two and four-man bobsled. He decided the European Cup in 2009 for himself and secured his starting place for the 2010/11 World Cup after

André Lange André Lange (; 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 h ...

's retirement. Although he was ranked below fellow German drivers

Karl Angerer Karl Angerer (born 18 July 1979 in Berchtesgaden) is a former German bobsledder who had competed between 1999 and 2012. He won a gold medal in the mixed bobsleigh-skeleton team event at the 2007 FIBT World Championships in St. Moritz. At the 20 ...

and

, he dominated the difficult track in Whistler in a surprise victory in the two-man bobsled with his brakeman Andreas Bredau in his World Cup debut. At the following World Cup stop in Calgary, he celebrated his maiden victory in the four-man race with his pushers Makarow, Bredau and

Poser Poser or Posers may refer to: People *Poseur, a person who inauthentically adopts a certain subculture *Bob Poser (1910–2002), U.S. baseball player *Charles Poser (1923–2010), Belgian-American neurologist *Christian Poser (born 1986), German ...

. On 20 February 2011 he won silver in two-man at the World Championships Königssee, finishing 0.18 seconds behind

Alexsandr Zubkov Alexandr Yuryevich Zubkov (; born 10 August 1974) is a Russian retired bobsledder who has competed since 1999. Competing in four Winter Olympics, he won two medals with a silver in 2006 (four-man) and a bronze in 2010 (two-man).

from Russia. His crowning event was the four-man World Championships on 27 February 2011, where he finished first and became World Champion. In March 2014 Machata received a 5,000 Euro fine and a one-year ban from the

Bob- und Schlittenverband für Deutschland German Bobsleigh, Luge, and Skeleton Federation (, BSD) is the official federation for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton in Germany. It is the German representative both to the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation and the International Luge F ...

(BSD) after lending a set of bobsled runners to Russian bobsledder Alexander Zubkov in exchange for a fee. In October 2015 the BSD announced that Machata had retired from competition. The following month he was announced as the head coach of the Chinese bobsleigh team, following the awarding of the

2022 Winter Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

References

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Machata, Manuel 1984 births Living people Sportspeople from Berchtesgaden Bobsledders from Upper Bavaria German male bobsledders German sports coaches 21st-century German sportsmen