oberperfuss - In nine years competing in the World Cup Gerhard Mühlbacher never reached the podium in the Overall World Cup. Now, with his new partner Christian Schatz, he won two races in the current season and today the Overall World Cup. “At the beginning of the season we promised ourselves a podium finish in the World Cup and in the same moment thought that this was probably asking for too much”, Mühlbacher said. “But I must admit that I did not feel exactly relaxed before the final run”, he added “here in Oberperfuss is no room for tactics, if you are ten centimetres out of spur, you are not only slow, but you crash.” Nonetheless they marked the fastest times in both runs and this with borrowed equipment: “My original runners are somewhere between Canada and Europe, my suit is a borrowed one and I bought new gloves yesterday. But I am used to it, no problem,” Mühlbacher said with a sense of humour as it was just him, who has his luggage missing for days in the last Canadian World Cup two years ago. “Seriously, we can´t complain, the original runners could not have been any faster than this one today was”, he said. Christian Schatz, who definitely earns the title of the rookie of the year, still could not believe his success in his very first World Cup season: “When we came back from Canada I did not believe that we could win this, today after the first run I knew we could. But I do not yet quite realize it. At the beginning of the season I would not have dared to dream of winning.” Slight support came from the Polish team: they finished second, ahead of the two believed contenders for the Overall World Cup Porschnev/Lazarev (RUS) and Beer/Kögl(AUT) who in the final account missed precisely these points. “We have had bad luck with hundredths a couple of times this season, today we got it all back”, Mühlbacher said. So Reinhard Beer/Herbert Kögl who had become World Champions in 1996 on this very track in Oberperfuss had to settle for third places in today´s race as well as in the World Cup. In the women´s event the first run was held today already and once again Ekatharina Lavrentjeva (RUS) is in the lead. Ranked second is Austria´s Melanie Batkowski followed by Renate Gietl (ITA). The men´s training results promised an exciting race for tomorrow as Marcus Grausam (GER) was the fastest. Gernot Schwab (AUT) missed the first training due to illness (but will compete tomorrow) and World Cup leader Patrick Pigneter (ITA) finished fifth. The race will be continued tomorrow, Saturday, at 12pm. Final Results Doubles: 1. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:22,08(1), 1:21,66(1), 2:43,74 2. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:22,70(2), 1:22,99(4), 2:45,69 3. Reinhard BEER/Herbert KÖGL (AUT), 1:23,16(3), 1:22,59(3), 2:45,75 4. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:23,23(4), 1:22,56(2), 2:45,79 5. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:23,39(5), 1:23,07(5), 2:46,46 6. Andreas LEITER/Thomas WEISS (ITA), 1:23,84(6), 1:23,36(6), 2:47,20 7. Adam JEDRZEJKO/Piotr KOBZA (POL), 1:26,99(7), 1:26,08(7), 2:53,07 Final Results Overall World Cup Doubles: 1. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT) 440 2. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 425 3. Reinhard BEER/Herbert KÖGL (AUT) 410 4. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) 365 5. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT) 280 6. Andreas LEITER/Thomas WEISS (ITA) 257 7. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 152 8. Denis ALIMOV/Roman MOLISTOV (RUS) 141 Chris Karl FIL Media Service