Kindl and Langenhan: two winners in the men's race - Germany wins relay race

Altenberg (FIL) Curiosity at the men's race of the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Altenberg: After the two runs Wolfgang Kindl (Austria) and Max Langenhan (Germany) were equal to the thousandth of a second - 1:47,997 seconds.

And both lugers were smiling. "I think it's totally cool that two of us can stand on the top podium," said Wolfgang Kindl after his eighth World Cup victory, "it would also have been a shame if someone was second with a thousandth of a second behind." Langenhan said after his second victory in the World Cup: "The fact that there was a thousandths decision is something I have never experienced before and is funny. It's cool for the sport when you finish tied to the thousandths after three kilometres of racing in the ice track."

But two winners in a World Cup race was not a premiere. The last time this happened in Park City was in 2011: the Austrian doubles Peter Penz/Georg Fischler and Andreas and Wolfgang Linger shared the victory then.

Kindl had a big advantage because he was fastest in the first run in 53.900 seconds. The 33-year-old two-time World Champion only had to complete his second run without any mistakes. But the luge athlete from Innsbruck did not succeed. Langenhan was sixth, 0.134 seconds behind. But in the second run it evened out again, although the 22-year-old from Thuringia also made a mistake in the 1387-metre-long ice track. "After the start I made a huge swerve and thought it wouldn't be enough. but I let it burn."  

Johannes Ludwig completed the podium, 0.033 seconds behind. But this allowed the 35-year-old German to defend his lead in the overall EBERSPÄCHER World Cup standings with 405 points. Langenhan improved to second place with 69 points behind. Kindl also made a big jump behind Felix Loch (326) to fourth place (296).

Victories in the doubles, women's and men's events for Austria in Altenberg, but in the relay it was not enough for a complete triumph for the red-white-red team. With a gap of 1.119 seconds, the quartet Madeleine Egle, Wolfgang Kindl and Thomas Steu/Lorenz Koller only came in fifth. Germany won with Julia Taubitz, Max Langenhan and Toni Eggert/Sascha Benecken ahead of Italy (0.325 seconds behind; Andrea Vötter, Dominik Fischnaller, Ludwig Rieder/Patrick Rastner) and Russia (0.493; Ekaterina Katnikova, Aleksandr Gorbatcevich, Aleksandr Denisov/Vladislav Antonov).  

The detailed results are available online at the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/de/ergebnisse/eberspaecher-weltcup-11