Rieder/Rastner celebrate first World Cup victory

Innsbruck (FIL): Debut for Ludwig Rieder and Patrick Rastner: The doubles from Italy won their first World Cup race at the EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup in Innsbruck-Igls, and the joy in the finish area was huge. All competitors came and congratulated the South Tyroleans. "We laid the foundation in the first run," said front driver Rieder. In 39.677 seconds they had set the fastest time of the day on the 817-meter track, which Rieder/Rastner call their home track. And regarding the further strategy, the 29-year-old said, "We just had to get the second run down." Whereby his partner simply put the term into perspective. "They always say Igls is an easy track. Easy to finish maybe yes," the 27-year-old noted, "but you also have to go fast and that's not so easy here."

Going fast was best achieved in the second run by Latvians Andris and Juris Sics. With the fastest time in 39.717 seconds, the European Champions improved from fifth to second place. They were three thousandths of a second ahead of local heroes Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller. The four-time season winners from Austria had briefly leaned against the wall after turn nine. This caused them to lose some momentum. And this speed was then missing in the lower part of the track. "I am satisfied in terms of the World Cup globes," said frontman Steu. That's because in the overall World Cup standings they were able to pull further away from their German rivals Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken, who finished fifth.

Steu/Koller have 811 points, Eggert/Benecken 700. World Champion Eggert had problems with the start: "Actually it was not a bad race, but we lost it in the start curve. The others get around there cleanly, we can't do that."

Once again, the young Latvians Martins Bots and Roberts Plume delivered an excellent result. The U23 European champions finished in fourth place. There was the duel of the generations with the Sics brothers as they lead more and more on eye level.

Results 8th EBERSPÄCHER Luge World Cup 2020/21 in Innsbruck-Igls (AUT): https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-6