Felix Loch dominates the World Cup opener

Innsbruck (FIL): The first winner of the Eberspächer Luge World Cup 2020/2021 season is Felix Loch. The three-time Olympic champion from Germany achieved the fastest time in both runs on the Olympic track in Innsbruck-Igls. Both runs were not completely free of mistakes, as he admitted afterwards. "In the first run I had a huge failure. So I thought: What is going on? You learn that you shouldn't go to curve eight too early when you come to Igls for the first time. But it was simply a lane problem. I thought that I would somehow be able to get into turn eight, which is why I didn't react very well when I got out of "Kreisel". But it just didn't work out," said Loch. For Loch it was his 40th World Cup victory, the first since February 2, 2019 in Altenberg.

Loch's lead over his team-mate Johannes Ludwig was 0.126 seconds. He started a furious race to catch up after he had only achieved the fifth fastest time in the first run.

The podium was completed by Dominik Fischnaller. The Italian was 0.180 seconds behind the winner. The 27-year-old from South Tyrol has had an inflamed appendix since the beginning of the week. "I was still riding with a little pain, but when you're in competition, you block that out", said Fischnaller. In these circumstances, he was satisfied with the performance, "except for the start, I lacked a little bit of power.  

The race did not go as desired for the Austrians. Olympic champion David Gleirscher dropped from second to fourth position in the second run. Last year's winner Jonas Müller was right behind him. After a driving error in the circle, he only managed the eleventh-best time in the first run, but thanks to a faultless run in the second run with the second-fastest time he was able to improve to fifth place. Nico Gleirscher, the younger brother of the Olympic champion, finished sixth.

Detailed results and further information:
https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-word-cup