Preview 4th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Winterberg

Winterberg (FIL): 21 nations with 129 athletes* have registered their participation for the fourth EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup from December 18-20th 2020 in Winterberg (GER). There will be 44 men, 37 women and 24 doubles at the start.
 
Ireland will participate for the first time with one female athlete. At the FIL Online Congress on November 20th, the Executive Board of the world federation FIL accepted Ireland as a provisional new member nation into the FIL family. Athlete Elsa Desmond will try for the first time to qualify for Ireland for the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup at the Nations Cup in Winterberg on Friday.

All athletes*, coaches*, support staff and officials from the "FIL World Cup bubble" – a total of about 300 people - who arrived in Winterberg on Monday, December 14th had a negative result in the Covid-19 test in Winterberg.

Winterberg in the Sauerland region will also see the second BMW Sprint World Cup of the season on Sunday, December 20th. The Sprint standings are led by Julia Taubitz, Felix Loch (both Germany) and the paring of Thomas Steu / Lorenz Koller (Austria) after the World Cup opener in Igls (AUT).

From Wednesday, December 16th 2020 the official training runs for the World Cup races on the weekend in Winterberg will start.

Felix Loch with white vest before Winterberg

Felix Loch kept his white vest at the 3rd EBERSPÄCHER World Cup in Oberhof. The 31-year-old athlete from Koenigssee succeeded in a perfect run in the second run in the rebuilt ice track in Thuringia. Thus he was able to turn the 0.039 seconds gap to teammate Johannes Ludwig, into a lead of 0.096 seconds. 
No wonder, if you dominate the competition like the German. 
Having only finished fifth in the first heat, Jonas Müller (Austria) was able to improve to third in heat two and overtake the two Russians Semen Pavlichenko and Roman Repilov. "That was such a great race," Müller was pleased, "in complete contrast to last week in Altenberg, "my second run was very round, I did really well."

Last emotional home win by Dajana Eitberger

It took four races in the women's EBERSPÄCHER World Cup until Dajana Eitberger won the first World Cup in Oberhof after her baby break. Next to her, her colleague Natalie Geisenberger was beaming. 0.072 seconds separated the two mothers. "I wanted so much for Dajana to win," said Geisenberger, "I hoped she would pull it off and get the home victory." 
Eitberger had quite an emotional reaction to her seventh World Cup win. "When I saw the 1 in the finish, I was just overwhelmed," said the 29-year-old luger from RC Ilmenau, "the tears were running." 
Kendija Aparjode from Latvia finished third and made it to the World Cup podium for the first time. After the first run, the 23-year-old was leading, in the end she finished in third place. 
For Geisenberger, it was second place for the fourth time in the fourth race of this season. She extended her lead in the overall World Cup ahead of defending champion Julia Taubitz, who only finished tenth.
 
44th World Cup victory: Eggert/Benecken draw level with Wendl/Arlt

Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken managed a home victory at the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup in Oberhof last weekend. The two luge athletes from Suhl managed the fastest run in both runs through the rebuilt ice track in Thuringia.

With the victory in Oberhof, Eggert/Benecken celebrated their 44th success in the World Cup. With this they have drawn level with Wendl/Artl. In the overall World Cup, the Thuringians have been able to close the gap to the leaders Steu/Koller (AUT) a little. Wendl/Artl, however, are far behind due to the crash in Oberhof.

Large and small crystal ball in the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup

The big crystal globe is awarded by the International Luge Federation FIL for the victory in the EBERSPÄCHER overall World Cup ranking of all twelve races. It is awarded in the disciplines Women's singles, Men's singles and Double to the athlete*  who achieves the most World Cup points from the classic EBERSPÄCHER World Cup (9 races) and the BMW Sprint World Cup (3 races). 
New in the coming 2020/21 season is the small crystal globe for each of the discipline overall winners of the classic EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup (9 competitions) and the BMW Sprint World Cup (3 competitions). 

The current overall World Cup standings are available at the following link:
https://www.fil-luge.org/en/overall-scores?event_season_id=28

Quotes before the 4th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Winterberg:

René Friedl, Head Coach and Sports Director Austria: "We want to build on the performance of Oberhof next weekend in Winterberg. Unfortunately, we were not in Winterberg during the preparation. After the turbulences last year, we go to this World Cup with full attention. We want to follow up on the successes of the 2019 World Cup in Winterberg. We are well positioned in all three disciplines. The organizer in Winterberg is making every effort to hold a good World Cup, under the difficult current conditions. We are already looking forward to the first runs."

Norbert Loch, head coach Germany: "Winterberg is again a completely different track like Altenberg or Oberhof. But we already had the opportunity to train this year. My team knows the track very well, hopefully we will have good conditions. In the men's event I made a small castling. We have swapped the fifth place. For Sebastian Bley now Chris Eissler will start. The same with the ladies. The fourth place is always vacant. We want to switch it. For Cheyenne Rosenthal, who did not perform badly, we will use Anna Berreiter at the next two World Cups to give her the chance to show her performance and to check it. That's the task for the two rookies in the team."

Sergey Chudinov, Head Coach Russian Federation: "We are excited about the World Cup races here in Winterberg. We expect very interesting competitions in all disciplines. I think all team captains are hoping for good ice conditions. The organizers from Winterberg have accepted the recommendations of all teamleaders after the last season's race in Winterberg. Because the ice conditions were not the best in the last year. 
It is important to have a good racing spirit with safe competitions on the track and independently off the track in this special time with the corona virus".

Schedule 4th EBERSPÄCHER World Cup 2020/21 in Winterberg:

Freitag / Friday, 18.12.2020
09:00 Nationencup / Nations Cup
anschl. Siegerehrung / Award Ceremony
14:30 Training Gesetztengruppe / Training seeding-group

Samstag / Saturday, 19.12.2020
08:55 1. Rennlauf Doppel / 1st run Doubles
10:15 2. Rennlauf Doppel / 2nd run Doubles
11:50 1. Rennlauf Damen / 1st run Women's singles
13:15 2. Rennlauf Damen / 2nd run Women's singles

Sonntag / Sunday, 20.12.2020

08:25 1. Rennlauf Herren / 1st run Men's singles
10:00 2. Rennlauf Herren / 2nd run Men's singles
12:00 Sprint Doppelsitzer / Sprint Doubles
12.45    Sprint Damen / Sprint Women
13.25    Sprint Herren / Sprint Men

Subject to change 

All World Cup races can be followed in the FIL live stream (partly geo-blocked in Germany, Latvia and the USA) at:  https://video.fil-luge.org/index.html