Julia Taubitz triumphs at German triple success

Altenberg (FIL /4 Feb 2023) Similar to the World Championships in the previous week, the German women celebrated a triple success at the FIL EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup on the SachsenEnergie ice track in Altenberg. With Julia Taubitz, Anna Berreiter and Dajana Eitberger the same ladies were on the podium, only in a different order.

Julia Taubitz had an excellent first run on her home track and went into the second run with a reassuring lead of 0.134 seconds. The 26-year-old from Annaberg-Buchholz, Saxony, learned to luge on this track and didn't let anybody take away her victory in front of her loud fan club on the grandstand. She won her first individual World Cup of the season ahead of World Champion Anna Berreiter (+0,307 sec.) and Dajana Eitberger (+0,330 sec.). The 32-year-old World Cup bronze medalist has an impressively consistent season and makes it onto the podium for the fourth time in a row.

Things were exciting behind the leading trio. There were only 79 thousandths between third and eighth place after the first run. Last year's winner Madeleine Egle (AUT, +0.659 sec.) ended up in fourth place, closely followed by Latvia's Elina Ieva Vitola (+0.723 sec.) and Italy's Sandra Robatscher (+0.743 sec.). The 19-year-old Merle Fräbel rounded off the top result of the Germans in eighth place. The snowfall that started at first eased off again towards the end of the race and did not noticeably mix up the plateau.

With her 19th World Cup victory overall, Julia Taubitz takes the lead in the overall World Cup and leads with 607 points ahead of her teammates Dajana Eitberger (582) and Anna Berreiter (509).

Quotes:

Julia Taubitz: “We were all hoping to get it down, and the fact that all three of us made it in the end is really cool. We can keep going like this!”

Anna Berreiter: “Just before the top 10, there was a snowstorm at the top. The three of us sat in a room and just laughed because we didn't know what it was going to be now. It was a great team performance, we are very happy.”

Dajana Eitberger: “That was insane, and I don't just mean that in terms of our performance, but in terms of the external conditions. The fact that we fought our way through this week is insane.”

The results of the 6th EBERSPÄCHER World Cup of the 2022/23 season are available at the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/de/ergebnisse/eberspaecher-weltcup-24