Vatra Dornei (ck) - With Evelin Lanthaler and Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara Italy had two of yesterday’s winners within their team, paired with third ranked Florian Breitenberger, they had to be the clear contenders for another first place. Florian Breitenberger even improved his performance and achieved the fastest time of the day, which cannot be compared to yesterday’s run times, though, as in the team event it includes the reaction time. The start gate opens as soon as the team member currently in the track crosses the finish line. However, overall the Italian team brought a two second’s gap between themselves and runner up Russia. The Russian team with Ekatharina Lavrentjeva, Stanislav Kovshik and Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov was not excited about the soft track conditions, but were satisfied with their second place: “We are a very powerful double and our technique is based on strength in the curves. This is completely wrong for today’s conditions and wehad two mistakes, one of them which cost us a lot of time”, said Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov. Ekatharina Lavrentjeva had to repeat her run because there was some confusion about the start of Stanislav Kovshik. To make sure that everything was absolutely correct she was brought back up to the start immediately. “My first run was better, but we would not have won today, the gap of almost two seconds between us and Italy is too big, so it did not really matter that my second run was not so good.” However, her “not so good” run was still the fastest runtime of all women. A premiere in the Austrian team gave junior Maria Auer, who finished fourth in yesterday’s world cup. “I never would have thought that I will be given the spot in the team”, said the happy Austrian, who attends a luge boarding school in Mals in Italy. “I was very nervous and I think I started a bit slow”, she analyzed. Her focus now is the Junior World Championship this weekend. “I am very happy that I had one additional run here due to the team event.” Fourth finished the team from Turkey which made their way up in the middle field throughout the past two winters. Final Results GRM World Cup Team Bewerb: 1. Italy (Evelin LANTHALER, Florian BREITENBERGER, Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA) 3:57,39 2. Russia (Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA, Stanislav KOVSHIK, Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV) 3:59,30 3. Austria (Maria AUER, Thomas KAMMERLANDER, Christian SCHOPF/Thomas SCHOPF) 4:01,90 4. Turkey (Asuman BAYRAK, Isa GUEZELOGLU, M. Emi DELLALBASI/M. Sait OZCAN) 4:20,32 5. Poland 6. Ukraine