Rehabilitated: Tatyana Ivanova achieves a commanding victory

Altenberg (FIL): Tatyana Ivanova not only achieved her 15th victory at the EBERSPÄCHER World Cup in Altenberg, but for the Russian woman it was also compensation.

At the World Cup opener in Innsbruck-Igls, the 29-year-old, who finished second in the overall World Cup last season, had only reached 20th place. So the victory at the second stop in the Eastern Ore mountains came just in time. "Altenberg is my favorite track, I like the rhythm", she said, "and after Innsbruck, where I didn't ride well, I wanted to rehabilitate myself here". Her lead over Natalie Geisenberger was 0.113 seconds. The Olympic champion and seven-time winner of the overall World Cup Geisenberger has thus taken the lead in the overall standings, level on points with Julia Taubitz (GER).

"If you had stopped after the first run with the same ranking, I would have been very satisfied", said Geisenberger. At half time Ivanova's lead was 47 thousandths of a second. But in run two she made a

driving mistake after the circle. "I tried something on the sled material again, took another risk, because I realized in the first run that even with a great run I couldn't quite get close to Tatyana," said Geisenberger. But the experiment did not quite work out. “However, it shows that I'm back, that I want to fight and risk something," said the German, who took a break last winter because of a pregnancy.

World Champion Ekatarina Katnikova (RUS) finished third, 0.200 seconds behind on the podium. Julia Taubitz was only fifth. "It was two very unclean runs", said the Innsbruck winner, "maybe it was because of the sled setup. Madeleine Egle finished fourth. "The speed was very good, there are still a few small things that take time, but all in all I am in a good way and very satisfied with the development", said the Austrian. Summing up the second race in the women's category, the German head coach Norbert Loch said: "The experienced masters have shown where they stand”, he said, acknowledging the success of Ivanova.

Detailed results and further information about the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Altenberg can be found here: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup