Not afraid of pre-Olympic omen: „rule will have to be broken“
Park City. At the moment Armin Zöggeler is almost unbeatable. On Saturday the athlete from South Tyrol/ Italy won the Olympic test competition on the future Olympic track in Park City; with his fourth victory in this season and 615 points, he also decided the overall rating of the Viessmann World Cup series for himself. With 1:29.391 minutes, Zöggeler, proud father of a little daughter („Nina“) since February 5, 2001, was first in front of the Austrian Markus Prock (1:29.557) and Johan Rousseau (1:29.799) from France. The best German athlete was Karsten Albert (1:29.928), who finished at rank six.
Zöggeler is filled with so much self-confidence that he does not believe in the pre-Olympic omen, saying that the winners of the Olympic test competition have later never won the Olympic gold medal there. „As far as I know Paul Hildgartner had won the Olympic test competition in 1983 and became Olympic champion in 1984“, says Zöggeler. Hildgartner, who attended the race in Park City this time as Technical Delegate for the International Luge Federation (FIL), had really won a race in Sarajevo in February 1983, however, the actual official Olympic test competition was a World Cup race taking place in Sarajevo in December 1983. Zöggeler: „Never mind, then this rule will have to be broken next year.“
The old track record of 45.595 seconds, which had been held by the local US athlete Tony Benshoof, was broken as many as four times even in the first run, before Armin Zöggeler set the new record at 44.590 seconds. Altogether there were 31 athletes who went faster than the old track record in the first run.
