Latvia triumphs in Team Relay - crystal globe for Germany

St. Moritz (FIL) Latvia won the EBERSPÄCHER Team Relay World Cup presented by BMW in St. Moritz at the end of the 2021/22 season.

Elina Iena Vitola, Kristers Aparjods and the double Martins Bots/Roberts Plume needed 2:47.101 minutes on the natural ice track. The special team spirit could be seen long after the official award ceremony, when the whole team celebrated profusely on the podium with a big Latvian flag, and the coaches took selfies with the athletes. "The secret of the team is that everyone supports each other," says Martins Rubenis. The bronze medallist of the 2006 Olympic Games is coach and chief technician in the Latvian team and explains the progress: "On the one hand, we have improved the training step by step, the young lugers have improved more and more, they feel very comfortable on their sleds. As a result, the spirit in the team has also grown more and more."

Second place went to the German team with Natalie Geisenberger, Johannes Ludwig and Toni Eggert/Sascha Benecken. The quartet needed 0.127 seconds longer for their runs. Third place went to the Russian team with Tatyana Ivanova, Roman Repilov and Andrei Bogdanov/Iurii Prokhorov. The quartet needed 0.675 seconds longer for their rides.

With the second place, the German team won the overall relay ranking with 476 points. The victorious Latvians (415) were still able to overtake the Austrian team (360) for second place because start luger Madeleine Egle missed the touch pad. "Too bad about the team relay, you can see how fast it can go," said head coach René Friedl, "we're certainly warned there with regard to the Olympic Games."

This is the eleventh time, in the twelfth season, that Germany has won the Team World Cup. In the 2019/20 season, Italy and Russia tied for the overall victory.
To see the results list of the EBERSPÄCHER Team Relay World Cup in St. Moritz, follow this link: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-team-relay-world-cup-presented-by-bmw-11