St. Sebastian - While the World Championships in Canada were the last season stop for the seniors, the junior sliders have one more race to go. This weekend the European Junior Championships will be held in S. Sebastian in Austria. But not only newcomers will race for the medals, experienced athletes and WCH medallists like Patrick Pigneter (ITA) or Melanie Batkowski (AUT) are young enough to compete in S. Sebastian. Also defending Junior Champion in the men´s single seater Florian Clara (ITA) has had his first World Cup podium finish in this season, he came third in Lungiaru and has been fastest in both today´s training runs in S. Sebastian. In the women´s training runs defending Champion Melanie Batkowski has been fastest.
Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov (RUS) who won the doubleseaters race back in 2005 in Kandalaksha (RUS) have become too old to compete in Junior Championships. Only Thomas Weiss/Andreas Leiter have been competing in Russia in 2005 as well as in S. Sebastian 2007. But two years ago they were still Leiter/Weiss whereas now they are Weiss/Leiter. They have changes their positions on the sled. The taller Thomas Weiss has become frontman. Patrick Pigneter, bronze medallist of 2005 has changed his partner since then. These days he is racing successfully with Florian Clara and no longer with Alexander Pamer. Pigneter has won the men´s single seaters´s Overall World Cup in the last two consecutive seasons.

The warm weather in Austria required a few adjustments of the track. The finish line had to be put up 200 meters as the soil in the last turn is too muddy to get it prepared for racing. To get enough snow to cover the track 80 truck loads of snow had been brought to S. Sebastian from the nearby mountains. To keep the track in a good condition the start hours have been moved to the colder morning hours. So racing starts at 8am every day.
Programme:

Friday, 23.02.2007: 8.00am: Begin of training runs 7.30pm: Opening Ceremony
Saturday, 24.02.2007:
8.00am: 1st Competition run doubleseaters 9.00am: 2nd Competition run doubleseaters 9.30am: 1st Competition run women and men afterwards Flower Ceremony doubleseaters
Sunday, 25.02.20076:
8.00am: 2nd Competition run women and men 10.15am: 3rd Competition run women and men afterwards Flower Ceremony
1.30pm: Medal Ceremonies

ck
FIL Media Service