Junior World Cup: Kaspars Rinks dominates in men's singles, doubles gold for Austria and Latvia, Germany with fastest women and team
Altenberg (FIL-WIA/ 20 Dec 2022) The fourth FIL Junior World Cup (JWC) in luge took place at “SachsenEnergie-Eiskanal” Altenberg (GER) shortly before the Christmas break. Altenberg was the fourth stop of this international race series for young lugers in the current 2022/2023 season after Lillehammer (double JWC) and Winterberg (GER). "Race in Race", the 44th FIL Junior European Championships (JEM) were also held on Friday, December 16, 2022 and Saturday, December 17, 2022. About 100 young athletes from 13 nations competed.
Doubles gold for Austria and Latvia
Austria's Lisa Zimmermann and Dorothea Schwarz not only celebrated victory in the women's doubles event on Friday in the Junior World Cup, but are also the new Junior European Champions. Silver went to Italy's Nadia Falkensteiner and Annalena Huber in both rankings, with a gap of 94 thousandths of a second. The German double Elisa-Marie Storch and Elia Reitmeier the bronze medal.
The new Junior European Champions in men's doubles are Kaspars Rinks and Vitalijs Jegorovs from Latvia. After two runs they could win against the defending champions Moritz Jäger and Valentin Steudte (GER) with an advantage of 95 thousandths of a second. European bronze and fourth place in the JWC ranking went to the local double Pascal Kunze / Maddox Götze (Zwickau/Altenberg). World Cup bronze medal went to Marcus Mueller / Ansel Haugsjaa from the USA.
Women’s singles: Gold and silver for German juniors
The new European junior luge champion is Antonia Pietschmann. With an advantage of only one hundredth of a second, the young athlete from RC Ilmenau relegated her team mate Alina Bräutigam to the silver rank on Friday. Austria's Dorothea Schwarz took the bronze medal. Pietschmann thus continues to lead the JWC overall standings. JEM defending champion Melina Fischer (Zwickau) fluffed the final run after leading in the meantime and ended up only in tenth place.
Kaspars Rinks dominates men's competition
The young Latvian Kaspars Rinks also clearly dominated the men's singles today and secured both JWC and JEM gold. The new Junior European Champion relegated his competitors, Austria's Noah Kallan and Italy's Alex Gufler, to the other medal places with a lead of more than half a second.
Germany provides the best team
In the final team competition, the team from Germany celebrated its third victory of the season, thus remaining unbeaten in this discipline in the current winter and is now also the Junior European Champion. Antonia Pietschmann, Marco Leger and Moritz Jäger / Valentin Steudte relegated Latvia's Franceska Bona, Kaspars Rinks and Raimonds Baltgalvis / Krisjanis Bruns as well as Italy's Alexandra Oberstolz, Alex Gufler and Philipp Brunner / Manuel Weissensteiner to the places. Each nation had one female and one male junior and one female or male double at the start. The three individual running times were added together.
photos: Sandro Halank
