Lake Placid (pps) The Junior’s World Championships at Lake Placed (USA) terminated with two surprises. The two titles went to Kate Hansen from USA and Austria’s Wolfgang Kindl.
Kindl held off the hard charging German Felix Loch, the reigning world champion, and won the race’s gold medal. Kindl, the 2007 world championship bronze medallist, carried a .167-second lead over Loch going into the second and final run. Although Loch won the race’s second heat, in a time of 50.631, he could not catch Kind, who had the heat’s second best time, and finished his two runs in 1:41.028. The 18-year-old Loch, the youngest-ever world champion, settled for silver in 1:41.169 minutes. The Bronze Medal went to Robby Huerbin from USA.
The Women’s race was won by 15 Year old Kate Hansen from California. German sliders did grab the remaining two podium positions. Lisa Liebert scored a silver medal finish, in 1:29.152, while Carina Schwab claimed the bronze medal in a combined time of 1:29.319.
“I’m really speechless right now…I can’t even say anything this is totally amazing,” said Hansen, who clocked first and second place runs on her way to a combined time of one minute, 29.105 seconds on the 1,130-meter long course. “Never could I have imagined anything like this, I was hoping for a top-10. I never dreamed of being on the podium or even winning this race.”