Austria nominates first Olympic athletes
Innsbruck (ÖRV/FIL) Austria's lugers will take a short Christmas break with the national title competitions. On 27 December, they will travel to Winterberg, where the World Cup season will continue on New Year's Day. Four of the potential eight Olympic starting places for Austria have already been allocated for Beijing 2022.
In the men's event, Wolfgang Kindl can be happy about his eighth national championship title after a one-year interruption, Jonas Müller and Nico Gleirscher took silver and bronze. In the women's event Madeleine Egle won for the third time in a row, the 23-year-old relegated Lisa Schulte and her sister Selina Egle to the places. In the doubles, Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller secured their fifth state championship title in a row.
The ÖRV (Autrian Luge Federation) sporting management, consisting of head coach Rene Friedl, Peter Penz, Tobias Schiegl, Robert Manzenreiter and federation president Markus Prock, announced a preliminary nomination for the Olympic Games in Beijing 2022 on 22 December 2021, consisting of three singles' athletes and one doubles team. The remaining Olympic starting places will be announced after the World Cup weekend in Oberhof (15/16 January 2022) at the latest.
In the men's event, the overall World Cup runner-up and two-time season winner Wolfgang Kindl as well as Olympic Champion David Gleirscher have been pre-nominated. The Stubai luger has two fourth and one sixth place on his record and has thus also fulfilled the internal qualification criteria. In women's singles, where as in the men's singles there are three Olympic starting places per nation, Madeleine Egle has secured her Beijing ticket. Egle had won the World Cup opener on the Olympic track in Yanqing and also won in Altenberg and Igls (sprint). In the doubles, where only two teams per nation are allowed to start in the Olympic competition, Yannick Müller and Armin Frauscher fixed the qualification early. The duo, which had missed the podium by a hair's breadth in Yanqing and Sochi with a fourth place and a sixth place, has not only fulfilled the criteria, but is also ahead in the internal points list. This tipped the scales in favour of Thomas Steu/Lorenz Koller with regard to the current pre-nomination.
Rene Friedl (ÖRV head coach & sports director) said: "We kept an internal ranking list starting with the season opener in China, and also announced at least three top six places in doubles and two top eight and one top six place in singles as qualification criteria in advance. Our hope and goal was to nominate a maximum of two sleds and one doubles duo each on the basis of these criteria and with corresponding performances before the Christmas break in the singles. Steu/Koller have the clearly better rankings, but due to their injury break they are at a disadvantage in the internal rankings as of today. Thanks to their top performances they don't really have to fear for their nomination, but due to our guidelines they have to wait until the final announcement of the entire Olympic team, which will be made after the World Cup in Oberhof. Until then, the last decisions for singles will be made.
