Victory, track record and lead in the World Cup was Robert Batkowski´s outcome of the weekend in Umhausen, Austria. Even though for a short moment Gerhard Pilz already looked like the winner. Batkowski had a mistake at the beginning of his second run, but with a fabulous finish he managed to beat runner up Gerhard Pilz by 0,26 seconds. “I knew I had to give it all if I still wanted to win this”, said Batkowski after the race. And then with a look at the score board and a smile on the lips: “But there was easily time enough”. For the first time in his career Batkowski also leads in the World Cup. “I have been racing for quite a while now and this is the biggest success so far, so I really do appreciate it. I have learned a lot in the past years and it seems like now I am ready for it. I will try to keep the lead as long as possible of course.”
Gerhard Pilz was not disappointed about taking rank two. “To beat Robert today it would have taken two excellent runs. I had two good ones and I am satisfied with the result.” After Batkowski and Pilz two more Austrians completed the picture: the brothers Roland and Gerald Kallan took ranks three and four.
Referring to his completely messed up parallel event (only 14th) at the beginning of the season, Geehard Pilz remarked that “every race is a new one”. This might be extremely true for the World Cup in Russia next week. Only the Russians know the brand new track about 80 kilometers outside of Moscow. No other athlete has had a chance for a training run. Karl Flacher, trainer of the international federation, has been there already. But the bigger question than the one how the athletes will like the track, will be the one who will be able to handle the temperatures best. Whereas in Umhausen everybody was freezing at ten degrees under zero, it had around minus 35 degrees in Russia.

Final Result Men (31):

1. Robert Batkowski (AUT), 1:17,90 (1/Bahnrekord), 1:18,49 (3), 2:36,39;
2. Gerhard Pilz (AUT), 1:18,26 (2), 1.18,37 (2), 2:36,63;
3. Roland Kallan (AUT), 1:18,49 (3), 1:18,31 (1), 2:36,80;
4. Gerald Kallan (AUT), 1:18,89 (4), 1:18,75 (4), 2:37,64;
5. Anton Blasbichler (ITA), 1:19,52(6), 1:19,18 (5), 2:38,70;
6. Florian Breitenberger (ITA), 1:19,64 (7), 1:19,73 (7), 2:39,37;
7. Andreas Castiglioni (ITA), 1:19,86 (9), 1:19,54 (6), 2:39,40;
8. Georg Maurer (GER), 1:19,74 (8), 1:20,00 (9), 2:39,74;
9. Martin Psenner (ITA), 1:20,02 (10), 1:19,73 (7), 2:39,75;
10. Ferdinand Hirzegger (AUT), 1:19,47 (5), 1:20,66 (13), 2:40,13;
11. Daniel Quitta (ITA), 1:20,56 (11), 1:20,60 (12), 2:41,16
12. Borut Fejfar (SLO), 1: 21,04 (14), 1:20,44 (11), 2:41,48
21. Corey Pusey (CAN), 1:22,46 (19), 1:22,98 (22), 2:45,44
26. John Gibson (CAN), 1:25,83 (27), 1:26,30 (28),2:52,13

World Cup Standing:

1. Robert Batkowski (AUT) 185
2. Gerald Kallan (AUT) 160
3. Florian Breitenberger (ITA) 120
4. Gerhard Pilz (AUT) 113
5. Anton Blasbichler (ITA) 105
6. Roland Kallan (AUT) 102
7. Martin Psenner (ITA) 99
8. Ferdinand Hirzegger (AUT) 91
9. Andreas Castiglioni (ITA) 85
10. Georg Maurer (GER) 76
11. Gerald Kammerlander (AUT) 72
12. Thomas Damian (ITA) 62
13. Borut Fejfar (SLO) 58
14. Marcus Grausam (GER) 53
15 Rudi Resch (ITA) 46
16. Björn Kierspel (GER) 45
17. Ervin Marn (SLO) 43
18. Corey Pusey (CAN) 40
19. Ziga Pagon (SLO) 37
19. Gaspar Benedik (SLO) 37
21. Daniel Quitta (ITA) 34
22. John Gibson (CAN) 32

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FIL Media Service