Armin Zoeggeler can also achieve an early overall victory
Paramonovo (pps) Germany’s three-time World luge champion Tatjana Huefner is facing her first “match point”. The 2010 Olympic champion can achieve her fourth overall Viessmann World Cup victory early at the Viessmann World Cup event on the upcoming weekend (February 12-13, 2011) at Paramonovo in Russia – the eighth of altogether nine events this season.
If the 27-year-old “dominator” in the post-Olympic winter is to celebrate her seventh win or finishes at least second, she cannot be overtaken anymore and will have achieved the unique feat of winning her fourth successive overall victory even before the season’s final at Sigulda, Latvia, on February 19-20. Huefner, who has gained 685 points up to now, then can no longer be beaten by second-placed Natalie Geisenberger (560
points) even if Geisenberger were to win the last two races. The only other women luger to have celebrated three consecutive overall victories before Huefner (2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009-2010) was Austria’s Angelika Schafferer in 1978-1979, 1979-1980, and 1980-1981.
Italy’s Armin Zoeggeler, who gained his sixth World title at Cesana after a six-year drought, can also achieve an early overall victory at the World Cup debut on the first Russian artificially-iced track near Moscow. The two-time Olympic champion leads the overall classification with 610 points and has a comfortable advantage of 65 points over Germany’s Felix Loch (545). German David Moeller, who finished fourth at the World Championships, has no chance of winning the overall title. He is in third position with 440 points. If Zoeggeler wins the overall World Cup title, the 37-year-old from South Tyrol will equalise Austria’s record-winning World Cup champion Markus Prock with ten titles.
As usual, the situation in the doubles is most exciting. Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt are currently in first position in the overall Viessmann World Cup with 615 points. But since their crash at the World Championships at Cesana, when Wendl suffered a painful flesh wound, their pursuers and World silver medallists, Italian Christian Oberstolz and Patrick Gruber (540) are seeing their chance. The new World champions, Andreas and Wolfgang Linger of Austria, are currently in third position with 492 points.
Photos: Mikhail Chikin (top), Dietmar Reker (bottom)
