LATSCH/LACES. On Friday, January 6th, the qualification runs for the GRM Group Luge World Cup on Natural Track from January 5th to 7th in Latsch/Laces (ITA) took place at the Gumpfrei-track.

At the men’s qualification, Patrick Pigneter (ITA) ranked first, with a time of 1:00.34 minutes he was a second faster than runner-up Thomas Kammerlander from Austria. Pigneter’s compatriot Alex Gruber came in third with a runtime of 1:01.46 minutes.
The qualification of the women’s event was a tough race, only a few hundredths separate the best three athletes. In the end, Evelin Lanthaler, who was the fastest in the women’s qualification, Greta Pinggera and Sara Bachmann have reached the finals for Italy, the Italian Junior athletes Alexandra Pfattner and Daniela Mittermair dropped out.
The best pairing of the doubles competition comes from Austria: Rupert Brüggler and Tobias Angerer ranked first and managed to leave their compatriots Christoph Regensburger and Dominik Holzknecht as well as the Italians Patrick Pigneter and Florian Clara behind. But it was a close race, Brüggler and Angerer were only four hundredths faster than the runner-ups.

At the Nation’s Cup, there have been Italian victories: Alexandra Pfattner won the women’s event, her teammate Daniela Mittermair came in second, Lubov Starikova (RUS) came in third. Stefan Federer (ITA) in turn was first at the men’s event, followed by the Russians Stanislav Kovshik and Aleksey Martyanov.

The run times of the qualifications will play a big part in the finals, as the qualification runs will count as the first final runs. Concerning the narrow results of the qualification, a tough fight for the podium can be expected. The final runs are scheduled for Saturday, January 7th, and will start at 3.30 pm.