Germany wins team relay ahead of Austria – Canada takes surprising bronze

Whistler (FIL/08 Feb 2025) The luge teams once again offered the full range of thrills, surprises and emotions at the conclusion of the 53rd FIL Luge World Championships in Whistler.

The question of who would win the last title was just as close as the placings behind them. In the end, Team Germany with Julia Taubitz, Hannes Orlamünder/Paul Gubitz, Max Langenhan and Jessica Degenhardt/Cheyenne Rosenthal took the fifth gold medal at these championships in 2:50.361 minutes. For Taubitz and Langenhan it was the third gold medal at these championships, Rosenthal/Degenhardt have won a complete set of medals. “This is a mega team performance. I can't remember ever being so successful in Whistler,” said Germany's head coach Patric Leitner.

The Austrian team with Madeleine Egle, Thomas Steu/Wolfgang Kindl, Nico Gleirscher and Selina Egle/Lara Kipp took just 0.131 seconds longer. Their head coach Christian Eigentler was a little annoyed with the weather conditions, but also criticized himself. “We've struggled with the speed of the track all week,” he said, “we simply lack experience in the sub-zero temperatures and the very cold, dry ice.”

To the delight of the many spectators at the Whistler Sliding Centre, Canada took a surprise bronze medal with the team. Embyr-Lee Susko, Devin Wardrope/Cole Zajanski, Theo Downey and Beattie Podulsky/Kailey Allan were 1.280 seconds behind.

Team USA (Emily Sweeney, Marcus Mueller/Ansel Haugsjaa, Jonathan Gustafson, Chevonne Forgan/Sophia Kirkby; 1.593 seconds back) was just over three-tenths of a second slower. Fifth place went to Poland (Klaudia Domaradzka, Wojciech Chmielewski/Jakub Kowalewski, Mateusz Sochowicz, Nikola Domowicz/Dominika Piwkowska; 1.736) ahead of Ukraine (Yulianna Tunytska, Ihor Hoi/Nazarii Kachmar, Andriy Mandziy and Olena Stetskiv/Oleksandre Mokh; +2.764) in the result list. Italy was disqualified because the men's doubles Ivan Nagler/Fabian Malleier had started too early. And from Team Latvia, the women's doubles team Marta Robezniece/Kitija Bogdanova crashed in the high-speed section of the Olympic track in Whistler.

Exactly 15 years after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and 70 years after the first Luge World Championships in the year 1955 in Oslo, the 53rd FIL Luge World Championships were held in Whistler. At the end of the World Championships, the FIL flag was handed over to the organizers of the 54th Luge World Championships 2027 in Innsbruck-Igls. Markus Prock, head of the organizing committee and president of the Austrian Luge Federation (ÖRV), accepted it from the Canadian organizers.