Huge chase brings Max Langenhan his next World Cup victory

Altenberg (FIL/03. Feb. 2024) Max Langenhan couldn't believe that the 24-year-old German would win his 13th World Cup at the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Altenberg. After the first run he was in 21st place. He was 0.881 seconds behind the leader David Gleirscher. But that was his advantage for the second run in six degrees Celsius and light drizzle. The World Champion was able to get on the track much earlier than his Austrian rival. And he took advantage with the fastest run time of 54.802 seconds. Gleirscher was just over a second slower (55.804). Combining both runs, he was 0.121 seconds off the pace. "It is a pity that the ice deteriorated so much, because I had no chance to catch up with the last starter", said Gleirscher, who was not really happy about his second place.

Langenhan was also surprised that he managed to do the almost impossible. "Normally, mistakes like that deserve a bitter defeat," he admitted. In the end, he struggled with his two runs. In the first run he got lost in turn 9 and hit two barriers, and in the second run he got off to a bad start. "I even got stuck," he explained. His conclusion: "I was just lucky today. You wouldn't wish that on any other athlete when the track goes down like that."

He had hoped that his team-mate Felix Loch would be standing next to him on the podium in third place, just like in the World Championship race a week ago. But the second best of the first run was also a victim of the slowing track. With the tenth best time of 55.785 seconds this was not possible. Fourth place, 0.234 seconds behind winner Langenhan.

Latvian Kristers Apajode made it onto the podium with the second-best time (55.458), 0.127 seconds behind the winner. But it could have been much more, had he not made a huge mistake in the kreisel.

After his run, Langenhan was worried that Jonas Müller would not finish too far ahead of him. After all, the overall standings in the World Cup become more and more important in the second half of the season. As the Austrian only finished in ninth place, Langenhan was able to extend his lead. The German has 570 points, the Austrian 419.