Favourites prevail - Surprise in the Team Relay Event

Winterberg (FIL) Are the favourites for the Olympic Games slowly crystallising? At the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Winterberg, the same three women were on the podium as at the race in Innsbruck-Igls.

The winner in both competitions was Julia Taubitz. However, there was a change behind the German. In Winterberg, Olympic champion Natalie Geisenberger finished second, 0.241 seconds behind Madeleine Egle. The Austrian was 0.256 seconds behind. As in Igls, Anna Berreiter (0.275 sec. back) came in fourth ahead of Summer Britcher (0.507) from the USA.

As on the previous day in the men's and doubles, the conditions were challenging in the spring-like temperatures. "Everyone had a little mistake," summed up Taubitz, the winner. Egle was also annoyed about the fact that she still had room to improve, even though she had finished on the podium for the fourth time this season. "I was already too bad at the start corner in the first run," said the 23-year-old Tyrolean after 17th place in the first run, "but I haven't been able to get it right all week. It probably wouldn't have been enough to win today anyway." Small satisfaction: with 56.105 seconds she had managed the best time of the day in the second run.

The joy of Natalie Geisenberger being on the podium again was marred by a fall by her team-mate Dajana Eitberger. "When I heard about the fall by Dajana, I couldn't really be happy about my podium place anymore," said the eight-time winner of the overall World Cup. However, the Olympic silver medallist from Pyeongchang remained unhurt in her crash in the maze.  

Latvia wins the Team Relay World Cup in Winterberg

The Eberspächer Team Relay World Cup presented by BMW ended with a surprise. Three winners in the individual races do not make the fastest relay team. And so Latvia with Elza Tiruma, Kristers Aperjods as well as Martins Bots and Roberts Plume came to a success ahead of Austria (Madeleine Egle, Nico Gleirscher, Thomas Steu/Lorenz Koller, 0.027 sec. back) and the US team (Summer Britcher, Tucker West, Chris Maszder/Jayson Terdiman; 0.508). Germany's quartet with Julia Taubitz, Johannes Ludwig as well as Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt followed in fourth place (0.661).  

At the fourth team relay of the Olympic winter, the fourth relay entered the list of winners. After Austria in Yanqing, the Russian team in Sochi and the German relay team in Altenberg, the Latvians won the relay World Cup in Winterberg one week before their home World Cup in Sigulda.

All results and further information on the 6th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup can be found under the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/de/ergebnisse/eberspaecher-weltcup-13