ŽELEZNIKI. First race day of the GRM Group Luge World Cup on Natural Track in Železniki (SLO): On Saturday, January 21st, the qualification runs for all competitions as well as the final runs for the doubles have been held in the presence of FIL delegates Harald Steyrer (Vice President of Finance) and Peter Knauseder (Vice President Natural Track).

Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) seem to be back on track: After a sixth rank at the world cup race in Moscow (RUS), the Italians triumphed at the doubles’ event in Slovenia: “In Moscow, we experimented a lot, but nothing really worked. Today, we were more relaxed, and we were in control of our sled the whole time. The track here is a technically challenging one, and that suits us,” said Pigneter after the race, and his partner Clara added: “From the beginning, everything went well. We have adjusted the equipment just right, and we could improve from run to run. It was a great weekend for us.” In the end, the victorious Italian pairing was more than two seconds faster than runner-ups Pavel Porshnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS), but the Russians were also satisfied with their rank.

Lazarev, who had won the last world cup race in Slovenia in the season 2011/2012 along with his partner Porshnev, said: “The second rank is great because the track isn’t that easy. Our first run was not perfect, and in the second run we also made a mistake. This in mind, we are happy that we ranked second.” But it was very close, the Austrians Christian Schopf/Andreas Schopf were just five hundredths behind the Russians. “We wanted to deliver a good performance in the second run and tried to secure the third rank, but we never thought we would get this close to the Russians,” said Christian Schopf. He and his brother Andreas ranked third in Slovenia, the Austrians stood on the podium for the third time this season. “We are on a good way, and we will try to keep going in this direction,” said Andreas Schopf, who is looking forward to the next races.

Due to their victory in Slovenia, Pigneter/Clara were able to expand their lead in the overall standings, but the Russians Porshnev/Lazarev and Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov come close behind.

At the men’s qualification, Patrick Pigneter (ITA) was the fastest with a time of 0:57:36 minutes, followed by the current World Cup Leader Thomas Kammerlander (AUT) with a gap of twelve hundredths, and Juri Talikh (RUS), who was 25 hundredths behind Pigneter.
At the qualification of the women’s event, the Italian athletes dominated: Greta Pinggera (ITA) ranked first, she had a time of 0:58.29 minutes and was 46 hundredths faster than her team mate Evelin Lanthaler. Sara Bachmann, also from Italy, came in third, she was one and a half seconds behind Pinggera.
At the men’s Nations’ Cup, Stefan Federer from Italy ranked first, followed by the Russians Aleksey Martyanov and Jakov Bukin.

On Sunday, January 22nd, the final runs of the men and the women as well as the team competition will be executed.

Results:
http://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/grm-group-luge-world-cup-on-natural-track-2