UMHAUSEN. On Friday, February 17th, the qualification runs of the women’s, the men’s and the doubles’ event of the GRM Group World Cup finals were executed in the presence of Harald Steyrer (FIL Vice President of Finance), Peter Knauseder (FIL Vice President Natural Track), and Bruno Kammerlander (OC President) in Umhausen (AUT).

At the qualification of the women’s event, Evelin Lanthaler (ITA) was the fastest athlete on this day: With a time of 01:15.39 minutes, the World Cup Champion of the last season ranked first, followed by Tina Unterberger (AUT) with a gap of 33 hundredths. The newly crowned World Champion Greta Pinggera (ITA) came in third, she was only two hundredths slower than the Austrian. Another three Italian athletes ranked fourth to sixth, but in the end only Daniela Mittermair reached the finals, while her teammates Alexandra Pfattner and Sara Bachmann dropped out.

At the men’s event, the current World Cup leader Thomas Kammerlander (AUT) came in first: On his home track, the local hero had a time of 01:13.69 minutes and therefore managed to keep the Italians Patrick Pigneter and Alex Gruber at bay. Pigneter, titleholder and Kammerlander’s strongest competitor in the battle of this season’s World Cup, had a gap of 42 hundredths to the Austrian and ranked second. Pigneter’s compatriot Gruber, who had recently won the gold medal at the World Championships in Vatra Dornei (ROU), came in third, only one hundredth after his teammate.

At the doubles’ event, a Russian pairing was able to win the qualification: Pavel Porshnev/Ivan Lazarev, who rank second in the overall standings with only five points less than the leading Italians Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara, had a time of 01:17.83 minutes and came in first, while the Italian pairing only ranked fourth in the qualification. Rupert Brüggler/Tobias Angerer (AUT), the World Champions of the doubles, were 26 hundredths slower than the Russians, but they were able to stay in front of the local heroes Christoph Regensburger/Dominik Holzknecht (AUT), who ranked third.

At the Nation’s Cup of the women, Alexandra Pfattner (ITA) won ahead of her compatriot Sara Bachmann and the Austrian Vanessa Markt. At the men’s Nation’s Cup, also two Italian athletes stood on top of the podium: Stefan Federer was victorious, followed bis his teammate Armin Folie and Christian Schopf from Austria.

The final runs of the men’s, the women’s and the doubles’ event as well as the team competition will take place on Saturday, February 18th. Afterwards, the champions of the GRM Group World Cup season 2016/2017 will be presented.

Results:
http://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/grm-group-luge-world-cup-on-natural-track-4