It’s not only Aileen Frisch who brings about a fresh breeze
Igls (pps) It wasn’t only Aileen Frisch who brought about a fresh breeze at the first Viessmann Luge World Cup event in Innsbruck-Igls. In the wake of Germany’s World junior champion, who earned a fifth-place finish at her very first World Cup, an international trio of young talents gave a promising debut.
Host Austria was happy about the successful World Cup première of Miriam Kastlunger. At her first go, the gold medal winner of the Youth Olympic Games posted a 10th-place finish. And just behind former World champion Erin Hamlin (USA) on 11th place, Sandra Robatscher of Italy on 12th and Russia’s Ekaterina Baturina on 14th place were equally successful at their first World Cup “outing”.
“I was really so nervous”, admitted 20-year old Frisch after the race. Having won the gold medal at last season’s 2012 World and European Junior Championships as well as the overall Junior World Cup, she was the one to set the tone among the young luge talents. “Such a World Cup cannot be compared to a junior event,” Frisch said. And probably said what her “junior colleagues” were thinking.
In the men’s singles Emanuel Rieder from Meransen (Italy) created a big surprise with his fifth rank after the first run. Eventually, the runner-up of last year’s Junior World Cup had to settle for a 13th-place finish. Ludwig Rieder-Patrick Rastner, on sixth place in the doubles, celebrated their best career result. The Canadian doubles team with Tristan Walker-Justin Snith never posted a better result (seventh place) in Europe than at the season opener in Innsbruck.
