Calgary, Canada (pps) The only consistency in this year’s Viessmann Luge World Cup is the inconsistency: In the nine races held so far there were nine different winners. Last weekend, Germany’s Barbara Niedernhuber joined the World Cup winners in the pre-Olympic season by winning her third World Cup competition at Lake Placid, USA, as did Germany’s reigning World champion David Moeller, who achieved his second World Cup victory, and the German doubles Sebastian Schmidt and André Forker who celebrated their first World Cup win in the two-time Olympic city (1932 and 1980).
Winning series as in previous years achieved by Italy’s Armin Zoeggeler and Austria’s Markus Prock or in the women’s event by Germany’s Sylke Otto and Silke Kraushaar seem to belong to the past. And this makes the Viessmann Luge World Cup so exciting this year with close competition at the top of the rankings.
Austria’s Markus Kleinheinz is leading the men’s rankings with 216 points followed by Russia’s Albert Demchenko (209) and Zoeggeler (195). In the women’s rankings Kraushaar is at the top with 231 points ahead of Niedernhuber (206) and Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova (185). Her husband, Christian Oberstolz, and his partner Patrick Gruber head the doubles’ rankings with 255 points even without a win so far. Schmidt-Forker are in second position with 220, Austria’s Andreas Linger-Wolfgang Linger are in third (205).
As Ukrainian Natalia Yakushenko at Altenberg, Germany, Canadian Regan Lauscher, who finished second behind Niedernhuber at Lake Placid, predicted the end of the German winning series in the near future. “I am sure that one of these days the winning series of the German women will end, if not by me then by some one else. But it will end soon”, the 24-year-old said prior to her “home-match” on the 1988 Olympic track at Calgary next weekend.