“Just for fun and without any pressure” Patrick Pigneter and Florian Clara finished the first World Cup race 2,26 seconds ahead of their competitors. “We both still want to focus on racing singleseaters, but as long as we can combine it, we certainly enjoy doing both”, said Pigneter. “In our first run we laid the basis for our success, in the second run we could be very relaxed and did not have to take any chances”, said Florian Clara.
A strong lifesign was shown by Poland´s Andrzej Laszczak and Damian Waniczek. After ten World Cup wins they did not have one podium finish in the last season. Now they are back and finished second. „We tried a lot, changed the sled, the runners, also our strating procedure. Now we are back where we want to be and we are very satisfied with today´s result”, said Waniczek.
For last year´s overall World Cup winners Christian Schatz and Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) it did not look to good after the first run with only the 5th best time. But with an excellent second run they finished third and managed to climb the podium. “We were pretty wrong with our adjustments in the first run. Somehow the track felt different today than in yesterday´s training. But we changed a lot between the two runs and thank God we could make up for the bad first run.”
Their best career result achieved Germany´s Bjoern Kierspel and Christian Wichan with a rank four finish.
Austria´s Reinhard Beer and Herbert Kögl quit their careers. They celebrated their first World Cup win in December 1996 in Rautavaara (FIN) and 17 more followed. With a total of 18 wins they were the so far most successful double seater racers ever since the beginnings of the natural track World Cup, followed by the Austrian´s Helmut and Andi Ruetz with 15 wins (retired in 1999)
In the afternoon the competition was continued with the first run of women´s single seaters. Once again the Russian Ekatharina Lavrentjeva is ranked first, followed closely by Renate Gietl (ITA). “I have beaten her already, so maybe if I can be a little bit more precise in some passages, I might be able to catch up with her”, said Gietel after the race.
Results Doubleseater (12):
1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 0:58,72(1), 0:58,87(1), 1:57,59
2. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 0:59,65(2), 1:00,20(3), 1:59,85
3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:00,63(5), 0:59,87(2), 2:00,50
4. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER), 1:00,39(4), 1:00,71(4), 2:01,10
5. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:00,24(3), 1:01,01(7), 2:01,25
6. Martin MAYERHOFER/Siegfried TRUPPE (AUT), 1:01,32(8), 1:00,82(5), 2:02,14
7. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 1:01,45(9), 1:00,95(6), 2:02,40
8. Philipp ANTHOLZER/Rudi RESCH (ITA), 1:01,05(6), 1:01,69(9), 2:02,74
Women´s single seaters:
Standings after one run:
1. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 0:56,42(1)
2. Renate GIETL (ITA), 0:56,62(2)
3. Melanie BATKOWSKI (AUT), 0:56,95(3)
4. Renate KASSLATTER (ITA), 0:57,38(4)
5. Marisa CLARA (ITA), 0:57,73(5)
6. Kinga GAWLAS (POL), 0:57,95
7. Julia VETLOVA (RUS), 0:58,04
8. Evelyn LANTHALER (ITA), 0:58,07
World Cup Standings (1/6):
Doubleseaters:
1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 100 points
2. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) 85
3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT) 70
4. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER) 60
5. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 55
6. Martin MAYERHOFER/Siegfried TRUPPE (AUT) 50
7. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 46
8. Philipp ANTHOLZER/Rudi RESCH (ITA) 42
9. Guido HILGARTNER/Jan HUBER (AUT) 39
10. Galabin BOTZEV/Chavdar ARSOV (BUL) 36
12. Yevhen PRYSYACNYUK/Maryan HYZNER (UKR) 34
