Calgary (pps) At the third stop of the Viessmann Luge World Cup series in Calgary, Alex Gough “killed” two birds with one stone. The 24 year old bronze medallist of the 2011 Worlds not only took the top spot on the podium at the Viessmann Luge World Cup in 1988 Olympic host city, thus celebrating her second World Cup career victory in front of a home-crowd. At the same time Alex Gough, who ended the winning series of Germany’s women’s lugers in Paramonovo (RU) last winter after a string of 105 consecutive wins, also went down in the history of the International Luge Federation, FIL, as the first title holder of the Amercian-Pacific Championships.
With a best time in both runs Alex Gough took first place being 0.112 seconds ahead of Olympic and three-time World champion Tatjana Huefner of Germany. European champion Tatiana Ivanova of Russia took third place, being 0.512 seconds behind the Canadian slider.
Natalie Geisenberger of Germany, who won the World Cup in Whistler, made a mistake – as she explained herself - in her first run at the exit of curve eight, dislocated her shoulder and finished in 13th place. In the second run, however, she improved to sixth place behind her two team-mates Corinna Martin (4th) and Anke Wischnewski (5th).
At the American-Pacific Championships Alex Gough’s team-mates Kimberly Mc Rae and Dayna Clay finished in second and third position and thus completed the triple success for the Canadian hosts.
Tatjana Huefner is still heading the overall Viessmann Luge World Cup rankings with a total of 270 points to her credit. Alex Gough moved up to second place (230), followed by Natalie Geisenberger (210) on third place.
Quotes
Alex Gough
(CAN / 2011 World bronze medallist)
“This is simply incredible. It’s just great to win in my hometown, under the eyes of my parents, my folks and friends. I know this track in windy conditions and have been able to adapt accordingly – this was surely the key to my victory today. It’s not some kind of secret of success but the result of a lot of hard work.”
Tatjana Hüfner
(GER / 2010 Olympic and three-time World champion) “I fought with the windy conditions in the first run. But I think I made best of it, even though I lost a bit of time. The situation in the women’s singles has changed. It’s obvious that Canada with Alex Gough and Russia with Tatiana Ivanova have caught up on us.”
Tatiana Ivanova
(RUS / Olympic fourth-placed and 2010 European champion)
“I’m so happy that I finished in third position just as in Whistler. Now I’ll try to further improve.”
