Umhausen (ck) - Three starts, three wins is the impressive score of Italy´s top team Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara. Whereas the competitors try to figure out their secret of success, the serial winners do not even care: “We just go into the races without much pressure, right now it seems that we cannot do wrong,” says Pigneter and tries to explain: “We both concentrate on single races and had maybe three extra training runs as double throughout the season. Maybe this is why in the double races we use the same technique as in single. I do exactly the same just with Florian sitting behind me. But I also have to say that our bodyweight and –height relation is ideal.”
With three wins and a margin of now 75 points in the overall ranking of the GERMANPIPE World Cup it has become very hard to beat the Italians. Also the title defenders Christian Schatz and Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) are aware of the situation: „To win the overall World Cup you have to win one or two races first of all. We are some little details away from that. We still can improve our equipment and we are certainly not at the point where we were here in Umhausen one year ago. We do good runs now, but not perfect ones,” resume Schatz and Mühlbacher, who have been on the podium in six consecutive runs (three wins at the end of last season, three third places in this season). Runners up were as so often – thirteen times in their career – the Russians Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev. In the end they finished 1,19 seconds behind the Italians and they know why: “Too much braking in the second run, a mistake in the middle part and I think that our runners were not prepared perfectly.”
Germany´s Björn Kierspel/Christian Wichan tied their best career result with another fourth place. They were satisfied with the result, but also see a lot of space for improvement: “We both have to work full time during the week. Our only chance to practice is during the official training runs at the competitions. Today we had two or three small mistakes in the first run so we missed the podium closely.” In the second run they achieved the third fastest time. Problems with their sled are slowing down the Polish team of Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek: “Our sled is really good in the turns, but we loose speed in the straight parts.” They hope to be back in shape for the European Championships in Olang (ITA) in four weeks.

Results (16):

1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:21,13(1), 1:21,24(1), 2:42,37
2. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:21,36(2), 1:22,20(2), 2:43,56
3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:21,19(3), 1:22,21(3), 2:4,12
4. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER), 1:22,31(5), 1:22,21(3), 2:44,52
4. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 1:22,16((4), 1:22,36(5), 2:44,52
6. Rupert BRÜGGLER/Tobias ANGERER (AUT), 1:22,31(5), 1:22,55(6), 2:44,86
7. Martin MAYERHOFER/Siegfried TRUPPE (AUT), 1:22,54(7), 1:23,07(7), 2:45,61
8. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:23,25(8), 1:24,05(8), 2:47,30

World Cup Standings (3/6):

1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 300
2. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 225
3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT) 210
4. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) 187
5. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER) 170
6. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 152
7. Martin MAYERHOFER/Siegfried TRUPPE (AUT) 138
8. Rupert BRÜGGLER/Tobias ANGERER (AUT) 105
9. Yevhen PRYSYACNYUK/Maryan HYZNER (UKR) 104
10. Denis ALIMOV/Roman MOLVISTOV (RUS) 78

Chris Karl
FIL Media Service