Innsbruck-Igls (pps) Olympic doubles’ champions, Andreas Linger-Wolfgang Linger of Austria, managed to close a gap in their medal collection. For the first time, the 2003 World and 2010 European champions celebrated a success on their home track at the season’s opener of the Viessmann Luge World Cup series. At the foot of the Patscherkofel mountain the two-time Olympic gold medal winners (2006 and 2010) won with a margin of 0,181 seconds ahead of Italy’s Christian Oberstolz-Patrick Gruber. Austria’s Peter Penz-Georg Fischler (0,196 seconds behind) finished third and thus rounded off a strong performance of the hosts.
Quotes
Andreas Linger (AUT / 2006 and 2010 Olympic champion)
„We absolutely wanted to achieve this victory. With two Olympic gold medals in ones pocket but no success on the home track – well, that doesn’t leave such a good impression. This is also the reason why today’s success means so much to us. Of course we’ll still have to take the overall World Cup victory in order to complete our collection, but you can’t really force it. We have to take it from race to race.”
Christian Oberstolz (ITA / 2008 European champion)
“We’ve worked hard for this second place. This is why we’re really pleased.” Peter Penz (AUT / 2007 bronze medallist Team Event)
„Finally we’ve been able to show our level of performance in Innsbruck-Igls, too. The competition in the doubles’ event is really brutally strong. There are six or even seven teams with results within two tenth of a seconds. Just a small mistake and you’re way behind. Now we want to give it our best.”
