With the victory of Christa Gietl (third World Cup win in her career) and the overall cup win of Sonja Steinacher (both ITA) ended the last RED BULL World Cup run of women in Natural Track Luge in Olang, Italy. Steinacher finished on the fourth place, but her direct concurrent Ekaterina Lavrentjeva (RUS) was only seventh. “We did not have so much time between the two runs, and Ekaterina and I both had some problems with the material, I suppose”, said Steinacher later. “And probably we were both a little bit nervous.” Steinacher celebrated one week ago a superb win at the World Championships in Zelezniki (SLO).

In the double seater, the Polish team Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek were in the lead after the first run and on her way to defend the overall World Cup. In the second run, they made some mistake too much, finished fifth in the run and fourth overall. The World Cup overall victory went to Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev from Russia. The two guys won the Junior European Championships, were second at the Worlds in Slovenia and won also two RED BULL World Cups.

Result women:

1. Christa Gietl (ITA) 1:11,48 (1), 1:11,58 (2) 2:23,06
2. Elvira Holzknecht (AUT) 1:11,87 (6), 1:11,52 (1) 2:23,39
3. Irene Mitterstieler (ITA) 1:11,80 (4), 1:11,82 (3) 2:23,62
4. Sonja Steinacher (ITA) 1:11,60 (2), 1:12,08 (5) 2:23,68
5. Renate Gietl (ITA) 1:11,63 (3), 1:12.17 (7) 2:23,80
6. Julia Vetlova (RUS) 1:11,80 (4), 1:12,01 (4) 2:23,81
7. Ekaterina Lavrentjeva (RUS) 1:11,90 (7), 1:12,15 (6) 2:24,05
8. Sandra Mariner (AUT) 1:12,39 (8), 1:12,87 (9) 2:24,72
9. Marlies Wagner (AUT) 1:12,98 (10), 1:12,87 (9) 2:25,85
10. Sabine Kogler (AUT) 1:12,53 (9), 1:13,40 (11) 2:25,93
12. Michaela Maurer (GER) 1:14,10 (12), 1:13,64 (12) 2:27,74
14. Melissa Jones (CAN) 1:18,65 (14), 1:17,50 (14) 2:36,15

Final overall standing:

1. Sonja Steinacher (ITA) 395
2. Ekaterina Lavrentjeva (RUS) 390
3. Christa Gietl (ITA) 369
4. Elvira Holzknecht (AUT) 314
5. Irene Mitterstieler (ITA) 284
6. Marlies Wagner (AUT) 254
7. Barbara Abart (ITA) 252
8. Sabine Kogler (AUT) 252

Results double seater:

1. Reinhard Beer/Herbert Kögl (AUT) 1:14,68 (2), 1:14,54 (1) 2:29,22
2. Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS) 1:15,26 (4), 1:15,06 (2) 2:30,32
3. Wolfgang Schopf/Andreas Schopf (AUT) 1:15,31 (5), 1:15,10 (3) 2:30,41
4. Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek (POL) 1:14,53 (1), 1:16,56 (5) 2:31,09
5. Günther Innerbichler/Alex Innerbichler (ITA) 1:15,76 (6), 1:15,95 (4) 2:31,71
6. Harald Kleinhofer/Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) 1:15,20 (3), 1.17,49 (7) 2:32,69
7. Martin Graf/Harald Laimer (ITA) 1:17,63 (7), 1:17,68 (8) 2:35,31
8. Andrzej Tyrna/Tomasz Kowalczyk (POL) 1:18,34 (9), 1:17,22 (6) 2:35,56
9. Simone Deme/Michael Squinabol (ITA) 1:18,23 (8), 1:17,93 (9) 2:36,16
10. Tomas Papiorek/Petr Pulcar (CZE) 1:21,63 (10), 1:22,60 (11) 2:44,23

Final overall standing:

1. Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS) 455
2. Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek (POL) 445
3. Reinhard Beer/Herbert Kögl (AUT) 410
4. Wolfgang Schopf/Andreas Schopf (AUT) 300

FIL MEDIA SEREVICE
Egon Theiner