Stepan Fedorov wins Viessmann Luge World Cup finale

Winterberg (RWH)  Russia’s Stepan Fedorov has claimed a surprise win in the finale of the Viessmann Luge World Cup winter season of 2015/2016. With heavy rain falling on the Hochsauerland region, Fedorov, who finished seventh in the 2015 World Championships, finished ahead of American slider Chris Mazdzer and the Italian Dominik Fischnaller. Fourth place went to World Championship silver medallist Ralf Palik from Germany.

Felix Loch, who finished the race in sixth place, had already secured overall World Cup victory. The Olympic Champion, who left the finish area without speaking to journalists, has achieved the second triple success of his career, consisting of World and European Championship gold and overall World Cup victory, having previously managed the same feat back in 2012/2013.

The jury rejected a protest from the German team about the inclement weather conditions.  “I had trouble getting my athletes motivated to start the race,” commented the German head coach Norbert Loch. Germany’s Chris Eißler had benefited from adverse weather conditions in the Hochsauerland region three years ago during the 2013/2014 Olympic winter, when he took his only victory in the Viessmann Luge World Cup to date.

Austrian Wolfgang Kindl (795), who finished fifth in Winterberg, claimed second place behind Loch (940) in the overall Viessmann World Cup standings. American luger Chris Mazdzer (700) finished third.

The International Luge Federation (FIL) is due to complete preliminary homologation of the future Olympic track in PyeongChang in Korea during the first week of March. Athletes of differing levels of ability from 13 nations will carry out test runs once construction has been completed and the new artificial track has been iced over.

Quotes

Chris Mazdzer (USA / fourth in 2016 World Championships)

“The track conditions really deteriorated on the first run. Things normally balance out on the second run, but on this occasion the conditions got much worse. I definitely benefited from my low start number on the second run. The conditions were pretty unfair.”

Dominik Fischnaller (ITA / Junior World Champion 2013)

“This is a very lucky third place for me. It more or less fell into my lap.”