Dominator Felix Loch: With ninth victory of the season to the overall World Cup 

Innsbruck (FIL): Felix Loch did it again: In the tenth race of the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup he claimed his ninth victory. In the individual races, Loch kept his clean slate with eight victories in eight races. And how? In the second run, the 31-year-old German set a track record in 49.819 seconds. With 128.2 km/h he was also measured with the highest speed. This allowed him to leave the Russian Semen Pavlichenko, who was leading after the first heat, behind by six thousandths of a second. "Somehow I am speechless at the moment. You can only dream of a season like this," was Loch's first reaction. With his 48th World Cup victory, the luge athlete from Königssee also claimed his seventh triumph in the overall World Cup. Team-mate Johannes Ludwig is 320 points behind.

"With us they say: When it goes, it goes," he said in Innsbruck-Igls. After two mixed years, the three-time Olympic champion confesses, "It fits super every week from the first day. Of course I worry about it. But I don't worry in the sense of: Can I manage this? I have the security and a routine and know exactly: I still have these reserves, whether that's on the sled or on the equipment." Third place went to World Cup runner-up Johannes Ludwig (GER), 0.216 seconds behind. "Even if it doesn't really want to be enough for the very front, I am quite happy," said Ludwig after his fifth podium finish this season, "there are always very strong riders, especially Felix. There is simply no way around him at the moment. You have to accept that."

As in the season opener at the end of November, Austria's strong lugers failed to make it to the podium on their home track. Olympic champion David Gleirscher finished fourth ahead of his younger brother Nico. "It seems as if I had leased the fourth rank in Igls", said David Gleirscher, "for the very front my starting performance is currently not good enough."

Tucker West and Jonas Müller had to learn that the Olympic ice track is not that easy to ski. The US American West crashed after a driving mistake in the maze. Müller's sled started to slide on his home track after the exit from turn nine, after which he got a rail and as a result entered turn ten too late and then hit the deflector at the top. The crash was unavoidable.

Results 8th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup 2020/21 in Innsbruck-Igls (AUT): https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-6