VATRA DORNEI. The final runs of the men’s and the women’s events of the 21st FIL World Championships in Vatra Dornei (ROU), which had been scheduled for Sunday, February 5th, were canceled due to the poor weather conditions. This was a joint decision of the Technical Delegates and the athletes representatives, who gave the safety of the athletes the highest priority and considered the track to be to dangerous under the given circumstances.
The great efforts and the engagement of the responsible persons, who worked on the track day and night and tried their best to enable regular races, unfortunately were not rewarded. The moisture of the fog in Vatra Dornei had softened the track to such an extent, that the proper preparation of the track was not possible. Credit should be given to the workers on the track that there had been any runs at all.

This means for the teams and the athletes that the first competition runs, which were held on the day before, are decisive for the determination of the winners. Thus, two Italians are now the new World Champions.
At the women’s event, Greta Pinggera, who already had demonstrated her skills in the team competition on Friday, had the best run time: With 01:16.70 minutes, the Italian was 17 hundredths faster than her teammate Evelin Lanthaler, the World Champion of 2015. Tina Unterberger from Austria ranked third, she was 1,23 seconds behind Pinggera. Sara Bachmann, another Italian, came in fourth, while Svetlana Zaravina from Russia ranked fifth.

At the men’s event, Alex Gruber was the fastest athlete on Saturday: The Italian ranked first with a time of 01:16.47 minutes. Runner-up was the Russian Juri Talikh, who had a time of 01:17.21 and was 74 hundredths slower than Gruber. Thomas Kammerlander (AUT), who had delivered the best run time in the team competition on Friday, came in third – 84 hundredths behind Gruber. Patrick Pigneter (ITA), the World Champion of 2015, missed the podium and ranked fourth, followed by Jack Leslie (NZL), who ranked fifth.

Statements:
Greta Pinggera: “In 2014, when I won the Junior World Championships in Vatra Dornei, the conditions were quite the same as this year. I, for one, like the warm temperatures, because you have to treat the track with a little more feeling, and that suits me. My run in the team competition was even better than the one I did on Saturday, because in the latter I made a little mistake and hit the boards. I was quite satisfied with my run, but I didn’t think it would be enough. To race under conditions like this is always a matter of luck, you have to find the best line on the track. At first, I couldn’t believe that I’m the new World Champion, but now I’m very happy – even though I would have preferred if we'd had one more run. But regarding the given circumstances, that was just not possible.”

Alex Gruber: “When I heard that the second competition runs couldn’t take place and I’m gonna be the new World Champion, it was a shock for me – but now I’m slowly starting to realize it, even though I still can’t believe it. It was very difficult to adjust to the track, but I’ve found a perfect line which was very different to the lines of the other athletes. Therefore I was able to gain some time in the last turn, which might have been the key to success. It’s a shame that there hasn’t been another run – I would have liked to demonstrate my skills once more and I was quite confident to finish first also in the second run. The World Championships were my primary goal this year, so of course I’m more than happy now to have succeeded.”

Results:
http://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/fil-world-championships-on-luge-on-natural-track