Timon Grancagnolo, Verena Hofer and Vavercak/Zmij win the final Nations Cup in Sigulda

Sigulda (FIL/01. Mar. 2024) Verena Hofer, Timon Grancagnolo and Tomas Vavercak and Matej Zmij win the ninth and final FIL Nations Cup of the 2023/24 season on the only artificial ice track in the Baltic States.

Verena Hofer from Italy impressed with her third Nations Cup victory in a row after Oberhof and Sigulda last weekend. The 22-year-old from South Tyrol won in 41.872 seconds ahead of Summer Britcher from the USA (+0.048 sec.) and team-mate Nina Zöggeler (ITA/+0.2840). "At the end of the season we have exactly the same Nations Cup podium as last week here in Sigulda. I'm very happy about this victory and winning the Nations Cup ranking. It's great and I hope to be able to show two more great runs in the World Cup tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

Timon Grancagnolo took victory in the final Nations Cup of the season with a time of 48.328 seconds. "The run today was better than last week. I still had a few mistakes, but I don't think anyone apart from Felix and Kristers will sled without mistakes here. I'm glad that I've worked out the track better now than I did last week. It was completely different for the World Cup than it was during our training week, and I struggled at first. It's working better now. I hope I can show that at the World Cup tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," said the 20-year-old German. Andriy Mandziy from the Ukraine finished two hundredths of a second behind in second place and third-placed local hero Kaspars Rinks was eight hundredths short of victory.

Tomas Vavercak and Matej Zmij from Slovakia won the final Nations Cup in Sigulda, Latvia, in 42.265 seconds in Men’s Doubles. Raimonds Baltgalvis/Vitalijs Jegorovs (Latvia) finished 0.126 seconds behind in second place, ahead of China's Saikeyi Jubayi / Shuo Hou (+0.181), who finished second in the Nations Cup a week earlier.

All eleven women's doubles taking part in the World Cup final will start at 2.30 p.m. in the seeded group training. None of the duos had to qualify for the World Cup via the Nations Cup.

The overall ranking of the Nations Cup was won by Verena Hofer (629 points), ahead of Nina Zöggeler (539/ both from Italy) and Trinity Ellis (394) from Canada in the women's event. Gints Berzins from Latvia took overall victory in the men's event with 515 points. Jozef Ninis (507/SVK) came second and Anton Dukach (456/UKR) third. In the women's doubles, Latvia's Anda Upite/Zane Kaluma took overall victory with 285 points ahead of their team-mates Marta Robezniece/Kitija Bogdanova (185) and Elisa-Marie Storch/Pauline Patz from Germany (130). Vasile Gitlan/Darius-Lucian Serban from Romania competed in nine of the season's nine Nations Cups and scored 435 points, which was enough for them to win the overall title. The two second-placed Ukrainians Ihor Hoi/Nazarii Kachmar also competed in all nine races and finished second overall in the Nations Cup with a total of 413 points ahead of the Italians Ludwig Rieder/Lukas Gufler (380), who won two Nations Cups and competed five times.

Detailed results and further information on the 9th EBERSPÄCHER World Cup can be found at the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-34  

Schedule 9th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup, Sigulda (LAT)
Local start time (=CET/MEZ)

Friday, March 1, 2024
14:30 (13:30) Training seeded group

Saturday, March 2, 2024

10:00 am (09:00 am) Men's doubles, 1st run
10:48 am (09:48 am) Women's doubles, 1st run
11:45 am (10:45 am) Men's doubles, 2nd run
12:37 pm (11:37 am) Women's doubles, 2nd run

13:45 (12:45) Ladies, 1st run
15:10 (14:10) Men, 1st run

Sunday, March 3, 2024

10:00 am (09:00 am) Ladies, 2nd run
11:30 am (10:30 am) Men, 2nd run

13:30 (12:30) Team relay

All information is without guarantee!