Grimmette/Martin interrupt series of German victories in Nagano
Nagano. At the Viessmann luge World Cup in Nagano/ Japan, Sylke Otto missed the „big jackpot“ of the International Luge Federation (FIL) and its marketing partner CWL by only four hundredths of a second. With a total time of 1:41.416 minutes the World and European Champion was able to celebrate her 20th World Cup victory, however, with a heat time of 50.647, missed the current track record, which the Austrian Angelika Neuner (50.605) had set on February 11, 1998, at the Nagano Olympic Winter Games. Now, in order to hit the „big jackpot“ amounting to US $ 50,000, she must break the track record at the World Championships in Calgary/ Canada on February 23 - 25.
Olympic champion Silke Kraushaar finished at rank two (1:41.859) and, with 540 points, could thus defend her lead in the Overall World Cup rating in front of Otto (506) and the Austrian Angelika Neuner (390), who, just like at the Olympic Winter Games took third place with a total time of 1:42.385 minutes. With this, the 24th World Cup in a row was won by a German woman.
In the doubles‘ competition, however, the series of 15 successive German victories was interrupted by the US doubles team Mark Grimmette/Brian Martin (1:40.544). Andre Florschütz/Torsten Wustlich (1:40.836) from Germany finished second and maintained their chance to contend with Steffen Skel/Steffen Wöller (1:40.898), who took third place, for the Overall World Cup victory. With 440 points Florschütz/Wustlich are only 20 points behind Skel/Wöller (460). After two years without a World Cup victory, Grimmette/Martin now won their seventh World Cup race and now take third place (371) in the Overall World Cup rating.
