Oberhof (pps) Even though the winning streak of Germany’s women lugers now extends to 86 consecutive victories prior to the Viessmann Luge World Cup in Oberhof next weekend, their opponents see a chance for change. “The time is ripe. I need to stick to it”, said Austria’s Nina Reithmayer for instance, after her third place at the fifth stop of the World Cup series in Cesana, Italy, last weekend. And Alex Gough of Canada, who posted another seventh place after the event in Winterberg, explained self-confidently: “We believe that Germany’s women, who dominated the sport of luge for so long, are finally within reach.”
Their belief in the own strength is backed up by the good run times. “I’m positive that we can beat Germany’s women. In my second run, I already came close to the times clocked by Tatjana Huefner and Natalie Geisenberger”, commented Nina Reithmayer. Once the gaps were timed at one second or more, now the difference between the winner Tatjana Huefner – who celebrated her 14th World Cup victory – and Canada’s Alex Gough amounted to a mere seven tenths of a second and Nina Reithmayer’s gap to the first place equalled to only three tenths of a second.
But it remains to be seen if Oberhof will be the right place to put an end to the dominance of Germany’s women. At the FIL Luge World Championships last year, the athletes of the German Bobsleigh and Sled Sports Federation, BSD, captured nine of the altogether ten possible medals. In the men’s singles, Germany celebrated a quadruple success and in the women’s singles four athletes posted top-five finishes. By the way – as a further incentive Germany’s national coach Norbert Loch printed out Nina Reithmayer’s quotes and gave them to the current World Cup leader Huefner (485 points) to take them with her to Oberhof.
In the double-seater, the Latvian brothers Andris and Juris Sics celebrated an impressive comeback. The 2008 European relay champions did not participate in the Viessmann Luge World Cup event in Koenigssee. Instead, they continued their development work on the sleds that they started during the Christmas holidays. And their troubles were not in vain – they grabbed a third place at the World Cup stop in Cesana, behind the two teams from Italy with Christian Oberstolz-Patrick Gruber, who currently lead the overall World Cup ranking with 420 points, and Gerhard Plankensteiner-Oswald Haselrieder. Thus, the Sics brothers celebrated their best result since Calgary in 2005, when they posted a second place. Andris Sics: “We want to thank our coaches because they worked with us even on Christmas and on New Year’s Day.”
The results in the men’s singles in Cesana also came as a surprise: For the first time this season, Austria’s Daniel Pfister, fourth-placed at the 2008 FIL European Championships, stepped up to the podium. Ahead of him were two-time Olympic champion Armin Zoeggeler of Italy – with his fifth victory in Cesana he thus confirmed his reputation as being invincible on his home-track – and Germany’s Felix Loch.
