Germany celebrates 50th relay victory – chaos surrounding Startgate

Sigulda (FIL/05 Jan 2025) What a curious race at the EBERSPAECHER Team Relay presented by BMW. And also a historic one. The German team celebrated their 50th victory in 3:00.723 minutes. Starting driver Merle Fräbel was able to build up a sufficient lead for Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt, Max Langenhan and Jessica Degenhardt/Cheyenne Rosenthal with a commanding ride. Head coach Patric Leitner was full of praise: “Merle is our rocket.” Nevertheless, it was still close, because Selina Egle and Lara Kipp caught up a lot for the Austrian team. The women's doubles of Lisa Schulte, Yannik Müller / Armin Frauscher and Nico Gleirscher had been sent into the race 0.410 seconds behind. The duo was able to catch up 0.370 seconds, only 40 thousandths of a second were missing. Ukraine (Yulianna Tunytska, Ihor Hoi/Nazarji Kachmar, Andriy Mandziy, Olena Stetskiy/Aleksandra Mokh) came in third, 3.947 seconds behind. “It was a strange race, but we are very happy with our first podium, because Sigulda is our home track,” said Andriy Mandziy.

There was confusion at the start. Normally ther is a 15-second warning before the start of the team relay. The 15-second warning was not given to Emily Sweeny (USA), Elina Bota (Latvia) or Lisa Schulte (Austria). While Sweeney and Bota set off, Schulte remained seated on her sled. Lisa Schulte's team had to repeat the start procedure. The USA and Latvia lodged a justified protest and were also allowed to repeat the start. However, both teams didn't reach the finish line in the second attempt either, meaning that only three nations were included in the ranking. Behind Poland, Latvia, Italy and the USA, the result list shows a DNF for “Did Not Finish”.