Whistler (pps) Felix Loch won the Men’s Luge race at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games and became the youngest Olympic Luge Champion ever at the Whistler Sliding Centre. At the age of 20 years, six months and 21 days the German claimed the Olympic gold medal and replaced Dettlef Günther who had won at the 1976 Olympic Games in Innsbruck at the age of 21 years, five months and 10 days.
Loch, the 2008 and 2009 World Champion, had the fastet time in all four runs and won with a total time of 3:13,085 minutes. His fellow teammate David Möller turned second for the Silver medal at 0.679 seconds behind. Defending Olympic champion Armin Zöggeler from Italy claimed the Bronze medal at 1.290 seconds behind Loch.
Russia’s Albert Demchenko, Olympic silver medalist at the 2006 Torino Olympics, turned fourth at Whistler. Andi Langenhan from Germany finished fifth ahead of Austria’s Daniel Pfister and Sam Edney . In front of his home crowd the latter mentioned got the best result the Olympic history of Canada under his belt. So far two times 11th place had been counted. Tony Benshoof from the USA turned eigth place.
After the tragic death of Nodar Kumaritaschwili from Georgia on Friday the start for the men’s race has been shifted to the women’s start.
Quotes:
Felix Loch
( GER / 2010 Olympic Champion and 2008 and 2009 World Champion):
„This is unbelievable. I don’t know what to say. The events on Friday were always present in my head but I managed to put those to the side.”
David Möller
(GER, 2010 Olympic Silver medalist, 2004 and 2007 World Champion): „My goal has always been to win a medal, but the coaches definitely did not expect Gold and Silver. The adjusted start position was in our favour. We managed to stand the pressure, Friday has been a sad day for the Luge.“
Armin Zöggeler
(ITA, 2002 and 2006 Olympic Champion and five times World Champion)
„It has been the right and only possible decision made by the World Federation to move the start further down. FIL had to set a sign. Despite the fact that I was not in favour to compete from the Women’s start I am very happy with Bronze.“
