German Triple-L: Ludwig wins ahead of Loch and Langenhan

Yanqing (FIL) Olympic champion David Gleirscher took off his cap and bowed to Johannes Ludwig. The 35-year-old German shone at the opening of the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup of the 2021/2022 season. 

Already in the first run the World Cup runner-up of last winter had set the best time in the ice track of the Yanqing Sliding Center, in the second run he improved his track record by one thousandth of a second to 57.298 seconds. "I'm happy with my performance at the start and in the track," Ludwig said, "overall I had very few mistakes in it."

His team-mate Felix Loch came in second. However, the seven-time overall World Cup winner was 0.854 seconds behind. "I can be happy that I came second," he said with relief, "I was still very surprised that I came sixth with the huge mistake in the first run." 
The record World Cup winner still sees potential upside for himself. Former Junior World champion Max Langenhan also from the German team finished third. 

After the first run, David Gleirscher was still hoping for his second World Cup success. The 27-year-old was 28 hundredths of a second behind Ludwig. But in the second run he made two mistakes. Immediately after the start he touched the wall lightly, later there was a more serious contact with the wall between curve 14 and 15. 
His runtime of 57.923 seconds was only the ninth fastest. He made his disappointment visible with his downward thumb gesture. "The performance is definitely disappointing, especially the second run was just bad, there's not much to gloss over. I didn't catch the key sections well today, especially 13," Gleirscher said. He dropped back to fourth place ahead of his teammate Reinhold Egger and Dominik Fischnaller (Italy).

Like the track in Pyeongchang with curve nine, the 1583-metre-long ice track in Yanqing also has its selective passage in the crossing between curves 14 and 15. Several lugers touched the walls there. In run one, Sprint World Champion Nico Gleirscher from Austria crashed, in run two Latvia's former Junior World Champion Kristers Apajods. Both slid to the finish unhurt.

Detailed results and further information on the 1st EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup 2021/22 at the Yanqing National Sliding Center in China can be found at the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-8