Jan 2nd-4th 2001
After the first run Robert Batkowski, Gerhard Pilz and Ferdinand Hirzegger (all AUT) were only 41 hundredths of a second apart and since starting with this season races are held in only two runs, suspense for the final was granted.
Robert Batkowski who had been running from one record time to the next, lost his first possible World Cup victory in the upper part of the track: “It was not at all a mental problem, I did not mind the pressure. The track had become a little bit softer and I had a mistake in a curve and that was enough to lose the lead.”
So Gerhard Pilz, five-times World Champion took the opportunity and raced to his 11th World Cup victory. “Last year I have had a lot of bad luck, lost some races by one or two hundreds. Now I have been on the lucky side again.” But narrow decisions are still his destiny: He missed the new (and official, as training records do not count) track record by - surprise, surprise – exactly one hundredth of a second to Ferdinand Hirzegger, who finished third in the race.
Hirzegger was very satisfied with his result “as usually this is not one of my favourite tracks. I prefer the fast and steep ones. But I have made some material changes, also thinking of the World Championships in Stein/Enns, and obviousely it was to the better.”
Yesterday, while there had been training in Umhausen, the technical chief of the FIL, Josef Ploner, visited Unterammergau in Germany, the next stop of the RED BULL World Cup tour (Jan 6th/7th). Ploner came back quite satisfied: “The track is in good shape, they produced lots of artificial snow and I am sure that the races will be held there as planned.” There had been some worries because of warm weather conditions.
Results singleseater men:
1. Gerhard PILZ (AUT), 1:19.16 (2), 1:18.91 (2), 2:38.07
2. Robert BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:19.15 (1), 1:18.96 (3), 2:38.11
3. Ferdinand Hirzegger (AUT), 1:19.56 (3), 1:18.90 (1), 2:38.46
4. Roland KALLAN (AUT), 1:20.32 (4), 1:19.80 (7), 2:40.12
5. Gerald KALLAN (AUT), 1:20.58 (5), 1:19.60 (4), 2:40.18
6. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA), 1:20.59 (6), 1:19.70 (5), 2:40.29
7. Herbert PLIZ (AUT), 1:20.80 (8), 1:19.97 (8), 2:40.77
8. Florian BREITENBERGER (ITA), 1:21.09 (9), 1:19.72 (6), 2:40.81
23. Andrew KOLODY (CAN), 1:28.00 (24), 1:26.76 (24), 2:54.76
24. John GIBSON (CAN), 1:28.73 (26), 1:26.62 (23), 2:55.35
26. Wolfgang BRETTNER (CAN), 1:30.21 (27), 1:28.81 (25), 2:59.02FIL Natural Track Luge
“Actually I already had retired. I graduated in fall and I am looking for a job now. The World Cup and all that has been out of my mind already, so maybe this why I am doing so well now,” explains Sandra Mariner (AUT), who has won her second World Cup race today. When Elvira Holzknecht (who was among the spectators today and one of the first congratulants to Mariner and Wagner) got injured, the team and the trainers had asked Mariner to continue her carreer as without her there would have been only youngsters in the Austrian team. So Mariner added another year, and obviousely made a good decision. “Still, I am looking for a job. But of course I will be there for the young ones.”
One of the young ones in the Austrian team put herself in the center of attention. Marlies Wagner (17) finished second in her only third start in a World Cup race. “I have changed material, switched from Bachmann to Torggler and also did a lot of training in summer. Now everything is going really well.”
In the race of the doubleseaters a young Austrian team gave an impressive performance. Andreas and Wolfgang Schopf – reigning Junior European Champions – became second in their first start in a World Cup. For a moment it looked like they would win: the experienced team Kögl/Beer was quite far back in the intermediate time. But they realized that they had to speed up and finally reached the finished with the best total time. “We were a bit too much on the safe side, but then I realized that this would be too slow. It was not that we had a mistake or anything in the upper part, just started the race too slow,” explained the happy winner Herbert Kögl.
Tomorrow the whole luge family will move on to Unterammergau in Bayern (GER) to continue the RED BULL World Cup.
The next stop after Germany would have been in Triesenberg (LIE). Unfortunately this race had to be cancelled again. Even though the track is situated around 1500m above sea-level, there is hardly any snow. “And an additional problem is that in Liechtenstein it is not allowed to produce artificial snow”, explained Herbert Wurzer, FIL-World Cup coordinator, “so we will have to find a new date for this event. We definitely want to hold it.”
Final results women:
1. Sandra MARINER (AUT), 1:20.68 (1), 1:20.08 (1), 2:40.76
2. Marlies WAGNER (AUT), 1:20.88 (3), 1:20.37 (2), 2:41.25
3. Ekaterina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 1:20.90 (4), 1:20.86 (4), 2:41.76
4. Sonja STEINACHER (ITA), 1:21.17 (5), 1:20.73 (3), 2:41.90
5. Sabine KOGLER (AUT), 1:20.68 (1), 1:21.60 (5), 2:42.28
6. Irene MITTERSTIELER (ITA), 1:21.82 (7), 1:21.62 (6), 2:43.44
Final results men´s doubleseaters:
1. Reinhard BEER/Herbert KÖGL (AUT), 1:25.17 (1), 1:25.60 (4), 2:50.77
2. Andreas SCHOPF/Wolfgang SCHOPF (AUT), 1:25.70 (3), 1:25.16 (1), 2:50.86
3. Eddy PERRIN/Emanuele GIANNELLI (ITA), 1:25.67 (2), 1:25.23 (2), 2:50.10
4. Peter LECHNER/Peter BRAUNEGGER (AUT), 2:51.10
5. Armin MAIR/David MAIR (ITA), 2:51.89
6. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 2:52.32
Chris KARL
FIL Media Service
