Day 1 at the FIL Luge World Cup on Natural Track in Deutschnofen (ITA) was an Italian festival. In the women's singles there was a 1-2 victory for Italy and in the doubles local heroes Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara finished on top of the podium.

The "Pföslriep"-track presented itself in excellent conditions and the competition finished with a heartbeat finale. After the first run World Champion Evelin Lanthaler was the only athlete to remain under the sound barrier of 55 seconds with a runtime of 54.96 seconds. The winner of Vatra Dornei (ROU) a week ago, Greta Pinggera (ITA / + 0.34) followed in second place, ahead of the Russian Ekaterina Lavrenteva (+0.56) and Tina Unterberger (AUT / + 0.61) in fourth position. In the decisive second run, Lanthaler was only 0.02 seconds slower than in the first run and celebrated a confident victory in 1:49.94 minutes, ahead of Greta Pinggera (+0.42) and Tina Unterberger (+0.97) who was able to push Lavrenteva off the podium with a strong second run.

(from left) Pinggera, Lanthaler, Unterberger

“I showed two very solid runs. I had to push really hard and I'm totally happy that I could win here“, said winner Lanthaler.

The victory in doubles currently ist he job of Patrick Pigneter / Florian Clara. The Italians laid the foundation for success in the first run, with a time of 57.48 seconds the World Champions distanced their pursuers Pavel Porshnev / Ivan Lazarev (RUS) and Patrick Lambacher / Matthias Lambacher by more than 0.80 seconds. In the second run Lambacher / Lambacher and Porshnev / Lazarev drove exactly the same time, while Pigneter / Clara set a new best time. With a total runtime of 1:55.68 minutes the local heroes won in a superior manner, ahead of Porshnev / Lazarev (+1.11) and Lambacher / Lambacher (+1.14).

(from left) Lazarev/Porshnev, Clara/Pigneter, Lambacher/Lambacher

"It looks easier than it is. We work very hard for success and the competition is always very challenging. Even a tiny mistake could make the difference between top or flop ”, Pigneter analyzed after the race.

On Sunday from 10 a.m. the “Classic” in Deutschnofen continues with the men's singles race and team competition. Both competitions will be broadcast on livestream on the homepage of the International Luge Federation FIL.