Innsbruck-Igls (pps) 2002 Olympic champion Sylke Otto is facing her third overall victory in the Viessmann Luge World Cup.
The World and European champion only needs to make just six points more than her team-mate Silke Kraushaar in the sixth event of the Viessmann World Cup series next weekend (January 25-26) at Inns-bruck-Igls, Austria, to achieve her third victory since 1994-1995 and 1999-2000.
After her fourth win of the season at Lillehammer, Norway, last weekend, Sylke Otto has 485 points and a 95-point lead from Kraushaar, her predecessor as Olympic champion.
“The overall victory was one of my goals for this season. After all, it’s been a long time since I was World Cup champion”, Sylke Otto says.
Austria’s Angelika Schafferer was the only athlete in the history of the World Cup to achieve that feat by winning in 1978-1979, 1979-1980 and 1980-1981.
Contrary to the women’s event, there is still a lot of excitement in the men’s event.
Though Austria’s Markus Kleinheinz (440 points) has a 50-point lead from Germany’s Georg Hackl (390), who won the event at Lillehammer, the Austrians maintain that “now the Hackl-tracks are looming”.
They mean the artificial tracks at Igls, Austria, and Winterberg, Germany, on which Hackl won two of his altogether three World titles (Winterberg 1989, Igls 1997) and traditionally shows strong performances.
And last year, the three-time Olympic champion concluded the Viessmann Luge World Cup as the victor at Igls.
Markus Kleinheinz, who has been showing a very consistent performance with one victory and four second-place finishes this winter, may be sufficiently warned before the event on his home-track.
“I never think of the overall rankings, I just concentrate on the next race”, says Kleinheinz who is the second Austrian since record-champion Markus Prock (ten overall victories) with a real chance of winning the Viesmann Luge World Cup.
Since the start of the season Germany’s 2002 Olympic champions Patric Leitner-Alexander Resch and the American Olympic silver medallists Mark Grimmette-Brian Martin have been in a very close competition.
Thanks to a second place and their win in Lillehammer the two-time World champions from Germany have gained a 44-point lead.
“But this lead will quickly be lost when you make a single mistake”, Patric Leitner knows.
Particularly as the two Austrian doubles, Andreas Linger-Wolfgang Linger and Tobias Schiegl-Markus Schiegl, currently in third and fourth position respectively in the World Cup, should have a slight advantage on their home-track.

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