The 700-Year-Old Inn Fueling Germany's Bobsled Team — and the True Cost of Olympic Medals

An Olympic Icon, a Centuries-Old Inn, and the Financial Strain of Bobsledding

At the 25th Olympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italian snow, the German bobsleigh team of Francesco Friedrich — already a double-double Olympic champion in 2018 and 2022 — carried the burden of a historic hat-trick bid. The outcome was a double silver in the two-man and four-man events, with teammate Johannes Lochner snapping the gold streak. Behind the sleds, however, unfolded a parallel story of a 713-year-old family inn and the increasingly precarious economics of an elite winter sport.

In the final days before competition, Friedrich and his crew — Felix Straub, Matthias Sommer, Alexander Schüller, and reserve Tim Becker — shunned the Olympic bustle and retreated to the Isserwirt in Lans, near Innsbruck. The inn, first documented in 1313, is run by the Raitmayr family in its 16th generation. Andreas Raitmayr, 32, a former aspiring pilot, and his three sisters, Lisa, Christine and Margarete, lead a business that has housed the team annually around the Igls World Cup for years. “I’ve known their kids since they were this tall,” trainer Gerd Leopold says, holding his hand at hip height.

While the athletes honed sprint starts with a Swedish ‘1080 Sprint’ cable-device — reaching speeds of 45 km/h before boarding the 210‑kg carbon fibre sled — the innkeepers faced their own quiet discipline. The Raitmayrs have deliberately limited expansion. “Growth is only desired in small doses,” says Lisa Raitmayr, “because you run the risk of losing quality.” The restaurant seats 150–190 guests; a former skate room, built in 1905, became a pandemic-era dining extension. The balance between tradition and modest renewal, the siblings believe, is what has kept the doors open since the Middle Ages.

The team’s reality, by contrast, hinges on relentless spending. A four-man bobsled costs roughly €120,000, a pair of runners €10,000–€15,000. Travel, lodging, physiotherapy, psychology, and bike-fitting specialists all need funding. Friedrich’s website lists about 70 sponsors, yet he says the money chase gets harder each year since COVID and the war in Ukraine. Federal support — sledges are built at the FES institute in Berlin with interior ministry backing — helps, but the resources are shared across dozens of summer and winter disciplines. Many athletes, Friedrich included, hold employment with the Bundeswehr or federal police to secure a steady income.

Why 70 Sponsors Aren’t Enough — and Why the Raitmayrs Say No to Bigger Profits

The Hidden Economics of Olympic Bobsledding

The bobsleigh team’s financial structure reveals a sport that is largely invisible to big-ticket broadcasters yet highly capital-intensive. The €120,000 sled price tag is just the entry point; athlete-runner partnerships — Friedrich co-develops his own runners with a Neustadt company — add customisation costs. The reliance on 70 sponsors is a raw indicator that no single corporate partner can underwrite a medal-contending programme. Moreover, the athletes’ dual status as part-time police or military personnel is a uniquely German solution that papers over a deeper problem: without state-subsidised salaries, the athlete pool would shrink sharply.

Leopold and Friedrich both lament a talent pipeline running dry. “Fewer and fewer children are taking up competitive sport,” the trainer says, “and youth are just very distracted.” It’s a structural headwind that, if unchecked, will make the €210,000 sled and the high-velocity physics moot. In a sports economy increasingly dominated by football, basketball, and Formula 1, winter sports like bobsledding face a double squeeze: rising material costs and a contracting base of young athletic talent.

A Family Business That Chooses Quality Over Growth

The Raitmayrs’ decision to cap expansion is backed by a distinct commercial logic. In an industry that often rewards scale and standardisation, the Isserwirt thrives on intimacy and memory: guests who have come for decades expect the family to recall their preferences. Andreas Raitmayr’s original dream of becoming a pilot gave way to the satisfaction of “running your own business, seeing how something develops” — and doing so alongside his sisters. The deliberate rejection of aggressive growth protects the quality that underpins guest loyalty and word-of-mouth, the inn’s only real marketing engine.

This model isn’t just sentiment. It is a durable moat. By not diluting the experience, the Isserwirt avoids the fickle reputational risks that chain hotels face. The business survived the Black Death, two world wars, and a global pandemic because it never overreached. In a leisure economy increasingly polarised between luxury chains and bland uniformity, a family-run property with 713 years of continuous operation under the same roof is an extreme example of a niche strategy that many larger hospitality firms only pretend to emulate.

Practical Lessons from a 16-Generation Hospitality Playbook and a Sport’s Funding Crisis

For hospitality entrepreneurs: The Raitmayrs’ success validates that long-haul guest relationships, not square metres, build a resilient revenue base. Their refusal to add seats beyond 190 illustrates that a crowded house can dilute both service and margin. Consider measuring growth not by covers served but by repeat-guest ratio — a metric at which the Isserwirt likely excels.

For sports federations and corporate sponsors: Friedrich’s 70-sponsor patchwork is a warning. The decline in youth sport participation will eventually make the pipeline too shallow for disciplines that require explosive, coordinated power — the very qualities on which bobsleigh depends. Funnelling support into grassroots talent programmes, especially multisport athleticism that feeds into niche winter sports, may prove a more reliable return than painting a logo on a sled alone.

For family business successors: Andreas Raitmayr’s delayed entry into the family firm — after considering an unrelated career — suggests that patience and clarity of motivation can be a strategic advantage. A generational handover that allows siblings to grow into complementary roles (Andreas as patron, his sisters in service and operations) creates the leadership stability that explains how one business has endured since 1313.