Another track record: Germany wins European Championship title

EBERSPAECHER Team Relay World Cup presented by BMW and 57th FIL Team Relay European Championships

Oberhof (FIL/18 Jan 2026) The record chase continued in the final race of the first Oberhof weekend in the EBERSPAECHER Luge World Cup, the Team Relay presented by BMW. First, Team USA with Ashley Farquharson, Zachary DiGregory/Sean Hollander, Jonathan Giustafson, Chevonne Forgan/Sophia Kirkby improved on the previous record with a time of 3:11.885 minutes. This put them eight hundredths of a second ahead of the Austrian team's time last winter. But the new record did not last long. The German relay team with Merle Fräbel, Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt, Felix Loch, Dajana Eiberger/Magdalena Matschina crossed the finish line in 3:10.452 minutes. This meant the third victory of the season and the first European Championship title for a German relay team since 2017. “The team relay is always fun to race,” said Fräbel, “and even more so when you win the gold medal.” Contrary to usual practice, German head coach Patric Leitner did not nominate double winners Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal for the relay, but instead chose Olympic starters Eitberger/Matschina.

Austria (Lisa Schulte, Juri Gatt/Riccardo Schöpf, Jonas Müller, Selina Egle/Lara Kipp) finished second in the World Cup and European Championship standings, 0.147 seconds behind, ahead of the Latvian team. Elina Bota, Martins Bots/Roberts Plume, Kristers Aparjods, and Anda Upite/Madara Pavlova were 0.910 seconds slower. Fourth place went to the interim record holders from the USA (1.433), ahead of Poland (Klaudia Domaradzka, Wojciech Chmielewski/Michal Gancarczyk, Mateusz Sochowicz, Nikola Domowicz/Dominika Piwkowska; 3.074) and Ukraine (Yulianna Tunytka, Ihor Hoi/Nazariii Kachmar, Andriy Mandziy, Olena Stetskiv/Oleksandra Mokh; 4.349).