Lisa Schulte, Leon Felderer and Gatt/Schöpf the fastest at the Nations Cup final in Winterberg

Winterberg (FIL/24 Feb 2023) Lisa Schulte (AUT), Leon Felderer (ITA) and the doubles Juri Gatt / Riccardo Schöpf won the final FIL Nations Cup on Friday, February 24, 2023 at the VELTINS EisArena in Winterberg.

At the ninth and last FIL Nations Cup of the 2022/23 season, 22-year-old Lisa Schulte from Austria won in 55.832 seconds ahead of Marion Oberhofer (Italy/ +0.573 behind) and Raluca Stramaturaru (Romania/ +0.998), in dry weather conditions around zero degrees Celsius. Lisa Schulte also secured the overall Nations Cup ranking with the victory in Winterberg: "The track was really in good shape today. The Nations Cup race was a fast last run before  the World Cup tomorrow, which was very good. I am also happy about the cup of the overall winner in the Nations Cup and that the season ending weekend started for me with the Austrian anthem". The overall ranking of the FIL Nations Cup 2022/2023 was won by Lisa Schulte with 440 points ahead of Marion Oberhofer (ITA/407 p.) and her teammate Verena Hofer (369 p.).

In the men's event, Leon Felderer won a FIL Nations Cup for the third time. With the running time of 51.693 seconds, the South Tyrolean was only four hundredths of a second behind the track record of Felix Loch from November 18, 2018.

The 22-year-old sports soldier from Latzfons was pleased: "In the last training run I fell. That motivated me especially today. I was extremely focused on the run. Sometimes such a fall is not bad at all. It shows you how fast things can go and motivates you to the highest concentration. It's a shame that I didn't quite break the track record today. But for Sunday I have a lot of plans. Winterberg usually suits me very well". Second behind Felderer was German David Nössler (+0.292) ahead of Svante Kohala (+0.510). The 24-year-old Swede was happy about the second Nations Cup podium after Sigulda.

The overall Nations Cup ranking was won by Valentin Cretu from Romania with 405 points ahead of Lukas Gufler from Italy with 377 and Slovakia's Marian Skupek (337 points).

In the doubles' Nations Cup, Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schöpf were the fastest from the doubles' start into curve 4 in 43.165 seconds. The two Austrians had also won the World Cup opener at home in Innsbruck and have already been on the World Cup podium five times this season. Two weeks ago, the young Austrians had also won the Nations Cup in Winterberg. Tudor-Stefan Handaric and Sebastian Motzca from Romania (+0.415) finished second ahead of Filip Vejdelek and Zdenek Pekny from the Czech Republic (+0.876). The two Romanians and Czechs were also on the Nations Cup podium in St. Moritz-Celerina the previous week.

Tomas Vavercak and Matej Zmij with four podium finishes and one of them a victory in the overall 2022/2023 Nations Cup ranking also took the overall victory with 445 points ahead of Filip Vejdelek and Zdenek Pekny (352 p.) and the duo from China Yebo Huang and Junyue Peng (342 points).

In the women's doubles all teams competing in Winterberg at the final of the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup are in the seeded group. Therefore no Nations Cup took place. Selina Egle / Lara Kipp from Tyrol won the Nations Cup ranking of the 2022/2023 season with 285 points ahead of the overall World Cup winners Andrea Vötter / Marion Oberhofer (ITA) with equal points (240 points each) and the World Champions Jessica Degenhardt / Cheyenne Rosenthal (GER) together on rank two of the overall ranking.

Detailed results and further information on the final of the 2022/2023 EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup, the FIL Nations Cup and the training sessions can be found at the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/de/ergebnisse/eberspaecher-weltcup-18

The results of the overall standings can be found here: World Cup Overall Results - Luge (fil-luge.org)

Schedule & TV broadcasts

Local start time (=CET/MEZ)

Friday, February 24, 2023

14:30 Training seeded group

Saturday, February 25, 2023

11:00 Men's doubles, 1st run
11:45 Women's doubles, 1st run

12:30 Men's doubles, 2nd run
13:15 Women's doubles, 2nd run

14:15 Women, 1st run
15:40 Women, 2nd run

Sunday, January 26, 2023

10:55 Men's Singles, 1st run
12:25 Men's Singles, 2nd run

14:20 Team Relay

Link to the live TV broadcast and the FIL Media Guide with info on athletes:inside https://www.fil-luge.org/de/multimedia

FIL-Studio: Presentations, interviews and more from the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup are live in the FIL-Studio: https://www.youtube.com/@FILLuge_Channel