Madeleine Egle, Sebastian Bley, Falkensteiner/Huber and Geueke/Gamm win Nations Cup in Altenberg

Altenberg (FIL/3 Feb 2023) Madeleine Egle, Sebastian Bley and the doubles' team Robin Geueke/David Gamm as well as in the women's doubles Nadia Falkensteiner/Annalena Huber won the 6th Nations Cup of the 2022/23 season at the Sachsen-Energie-Eiskanal in Altenberg on Friday, February 3, 2023.

The 24-year-old Tyrolean Madeleine Egle, one week earlier fourth at the World Championships in Oberhof (GER), was the fastest of the 26 participating women in the individual event at the Nations Cup for World Cup qualification in Altenberg. In 53.356 seconds Egle won ahead of Summer Britcher (USA/+0.228 seconds) and her teammate Hannah Prock (+0.644) one day after her 23rd birthday. "It was a crazy training week with very changeable conditions and hardly any material knowledge. Today in the Nations Cup I was seven seconds faster than in training last night. In the World Cup race it needs a lot of flexibility in the material set-up and for sure also some luck, but I am looking forward to the race tomorrow," said Madeleine Egle from Tyrol.

In the overall Nations Cup ranking Kendija Aparjode (LAT) is leading ahead of Merle Fräbel (GER) and Nina Zöggeler (ITA). Six of a total of nine Nations Cups have already been held.

In the men's singles event Sebastian Bley, in his first Nations Cup appearance this winter, celebrated victory. The 27-year-old German won sovereign with a running time of 55.174 seconds and was thus two tenths of a second faster than Jonathan Gustafson. The 25-year-old US-American had already made it to the podium at the Nations Cup at the start of the season in Innsbruck and then started in the seeded group. Third place among the 18 starters went to Moritz Bollmann (GER/+0,207) from Thuringia. With the victory in Sigulda and his podium finish at the Nations Cup in Whistler, Alexander Ferlazzo (AUS) continues to lead the overall ranking after six of nine Nations Cups ahead of Lukas Gufler (ITA) and Jozef Huzla (SVK).

"My run today was not so bad for the conditions with the rain and strong wind. The middle part can be done better, but I won today and that's all I can do in my only international event of the season," said winner Bley. Jonny Gustafson also defied the weather: "My run wasn't too bad today, but I need to improve some things for the World Cup race on Sunday to get faster. Altenberg is always cool. I like to race here very much. If you attack properly here, you can achieve a lot. Usually the fun is because it's very fast. But today the track was a little less fast and it was more quiet and cool to ride. It was a different kind of fun, but I also liked it a lot."

In the Nations Cup doubles, Robin Geueke and David Gamm were the fastest in 42.538 seconds. The 2017 World Championship's bronze medalists failed to qualify for the World Cup in the German team's internal qualification. As with Sebastian Bley, the Nations Cup victory on February 3 in Altenberg was the first chance of the winter to prove themselves internationally. The Winterberg duo won 0.113 seconds ahead of their young teammates Max Ewald and Jakob Jannusch from Thuringia and Tomas Vavercak and Matej Zmij (+0.255 sec.). The two 23-year-old Slovaks lead the Nations Cup ranking of men's doubles after six races with three podium finishes.  Dana Kellogg and Duncan Segger from the USA follow in second place ahead of the Canadians Devin Wardrope and Cole Zajanski.

For the first time, the women's doubles will compete in the FIL Nations Cup this season. In the SachsenEngergie-Eiskanal of Altenberg, the start height of the doubles for women and men is at the junior start. In the women's event, the South Tyrolean juniors Nadia Falkensteiner and Annalena Huber won in a time of 43.394 seconds. The young Latvians Vikorija Ziedina/Selina Zvilna came in second, five tenths of a second behind, and Anna Cezikova and Lucie Janosova from the Czech Republic came in third, eight tenths behind.

Selina Egle/Lara Kipp of Austria lead the overall standings ahead of Italy's Andrea Vötter/Marion Oberhofer and World Champions Jessica Dengenhardt/Cheyenne Rosenthal of Germany.

Athletes qualified for the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup on Saturday, February 4 and Sunday, February 5 in Altenberg via the Nations Cup, which was run in one heat on Friday, February 3, 2023. The fastest twelve sleds of each of the last three World Cup races are seeded and do not have to go to the Nations Cup for qualification. For them, there will be the training of the seeded group on Friday, February 3, starting at 2:30 p.m. local time, as the last run before the World Cup in SachsenEngergie-Eiskanal.

Detailed results and further information about the 6th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup and of course about the Nations Cup in Altenberg can be found under the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-23

All World Cup races can be followed in livestream on the FIL YouTube channel at: FIL Luge - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@FILLuge_Channel (In Germany, Latvia and Austria the Livestream is partly geo-blocked because of live TV broadcasts). The TV times can be found on the FIL website under the following link: (fil-luge.org)

Presentations, interviews and more from the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup are available live in the FIL studio: https://www.youtube.com/live/mtEAmrLaVRc?feature=share