Premier victory for Eggert/Benecken in Yanqing

Yanqing (FIL) Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken (GER) set the best time twice on the new Olympic track at the Yanqing Sliding Center. Thus, the World champions won the first doubles competition of the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup of the 2021/22 season. The duo from Thuringia claimed their 47th World Cup victory. 

Austria's Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller followed 0.209 seconds behind the World champions from Oberhof. Last season's overall World Cup winners were again 0.220 seconds ahead of the brothers Andris and Juris Sics from Latvia. 

“Even though the time gaps are unusually large, it was still two exciting runs,” said winner Toni Eggert, “no one stayed clear of mistakes on the demanding track.” Nevertheless, said the 33-year-old, the conditions were very fair for all duos. “What is special is that the track is extremely long, which means that you have to focus and concentrate for a very long time. In addition, the curve pressure is very low and it is difficult to feel the points to steer, which means that you have to look for other landmarks,” said World Champion Eggert.

There is doubt whether Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt see it that way, too. The Olympic champions had only come in ninth place. They had not been allowed to train for the past two days because Arlt had tested positive for Corona. In the following two days, the tests were negative again. They lacked the usual confidence in their runs. That's why the Olympic champions lost too much momentum in turn five on the demanding track after making mistakes in both runs. However, in both runs they were the fastest at the start.

Result lists and further information on the 1st EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup 2021/22 at the Yanqing National Sliding Center in China can be found under the following link: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-8