Vienna (pps) After having claimed the silver medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi (Russia), Austria’s most successful lugers of all time, double Olympic Champions Andreas (aged 32) and his brother Wolfgang Linger (30), will draw a line under their active luge career. “We both have families back home. It’s not always easy to be on the road for weeks and even months every winter,” said Wolfgang Linger in Vienna, speaking in front of journalists. His brother Andreas added: “The other reason is that we didn’t really have the necessary drive any more. If we go out there and do a job, we want to give it a 100 percent.”

The team of brothers, domiciled in Absam in Tyrol, has won everything there is to win in the sport of luge. Apart from three Olympic medals (gold in 2006 and 2010, silver in 2014), they have also claimed three World Championship doubles titles (2003, 2011 and 2012) and the title at the 2010 Europeans. Additionally they took the overall Viessmann Luge World Cup crown in the 2011-2012 winter. Linger-Linger have won a total of 14 medals at Olympic Games, World and European Championships, three of them in the Team Relay event. And to top their track record off, they have claimed 15 individual victories in the Viessmann Luge World Cup series.