Andreas Linger: “Important weeks leading up to the overall World Cup”
Winterberg (pps) After the World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, which was the fifth of altogether nine stops on the Viessmann Luge World Cup series, Germany’s Tatjana Huefner and Felix Loch are right on target for the overall World Cup title in the women’s and men’s singles, respectively. The same holds true for Austrians Andreas and Wolfgang Linger in the doubles.
Ahead of the next stop of the Viessmann Luge World Cup series this weekend in Winterberg, Olympic and three-time World Champion Huefner, with a total of 455 points to her credit, managed to keep her lead. Thanks to her victory in Oberhof, teammate Natalie Geisenberger (395 points) moved up one rank to second place. Canadian luger Alex Gough, winner in Calgary and fourth in Oberhof, is now in third position with 360 points.
In the men’s singles, 2010 Olympic Champion Loch even increased his already comfortable lead. The 2001 World Championship silver medalist now has 485 points and is thus 115 points ahead of teammate David Moeller (370 points). Third in the overall standings is Johannes Ludwig (GER / 311 points) who was seventh in Oberhof.
The Linger brothers, Andreas and Wolfgang, were downright relieved after their third place in Oberhof. “We are always happy to make it on the podium in Oberhof. These are important weeks for us, bearing the overall World Cup in mind. And Oberhof is not really among our favorite tracks. This is why we’re all the more happy about the result,” said two-time Olympic Champion Andreas Linger. The “crystal ball” for the overall Viessmann Luge World Cup winners is the only award still missing in the collection of the two brothers from Tyrol as they also have two World Championship gold medals.
In the overall standings Linger-Linger defended their top spot. Having collected 410 points, they are ahead of Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt (395 points) and Toni Eggert-Sascha-Benecken (GER / 355 points), who scored their first World Cup podium place last weekend.
