Whistler (pps) Tatjana Hüfner continues the German women’s victory series in Olympic Luge races with the fourth consecutive gold medal at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The 26-years old celebrated the biggest achievement of her career after three World Cup and two World Championship titles. Austria’s Nina Reithmayer surprisingly claimed the silver medal, Hüfner’s teammate Natalie Geisenberger turned third place for the Bronze medal.
Hüfner’s Predecessors as Olympic Champions in Luge were Silke Kraushaar (1998) and Sylke Otto (2002 und 2006). The last non-German Olmypic gold medalist has been Gerda Weissensteiner from Italy in 1994 at Lillehammer.
Tatjana Hüfner, Bronze medalist at the 2006 Olympics, had started cautiously turning third after the first run but she’s put in the fastest time in all three runs thereafter. The soldier won with a total time of 2:46.524 minutes. Nina Reithmayer, 2002 Junior World Champion, who had been in the lead after the first run, droppend back to second place with a total of 0.490 seconds behind Hüfner. At her Olympic premiere, Natalie Geisenberger turned third at 0.577 seconds behind.
European Champion Tatiana Ivanova from Russia missed the Bronze medal as the biggest present on her 19th birthday today by only one tenth of a second. Anke Wischnewski (GER) finished fifth ahead of Alexandra Rodionova (RUS). Swiss luger Martina Kocher and Ewelina Staszulonek from Poland will at least take home the Olympic Diploma which is awarded for the top eight finishers.
Although best result of the host nation was 15th place by Regan Lauscher, a big crowd turned the Whistler Sliding Centre into a Party mile. Even 16th place of reigning World Champion Erin Hamlin from the USA was loudly cheered at by 12,000 spectators at the track.
After the accident of Georgia’s luger Nodar Kumaritaschwili the Women’s race track was shortened by 245m. Some participants faced big problems with the new start which was shifted to the Juniors’ start house.
QUOTES
Tatjana Hüfner (GER, 2010 Olympic Champion):
“Awesome, I am so happy, a dream came true. All the hard work and the years of training have paid off today. I was a bit nervous, but I pulled it together and the crow at the track helped a lot – the atmosphere was great. There are no words to describe my feelings, I am Olympic Champion!”
Nina Reithmayer (AUT, 2010 Olympic Silver Medalist):
“This is just great, what a relief from my heart. It is not easy to … the Germans and it was important to put in four solid runs. I'm glad that I kept my nerves and I stayed relaxed. The amount of training has paid off.“
Natalie Geisenberger (GER, 2010 Olympic Bronze Medalist):
„This is unbelievable, I am so happy. Shifting the start was not in our favour but we all had to deal with it. We have been slower than from the original start height, but you can’t talk about a “kids start”, there must have been a misunderstanding earlier. Right before my last run a photographer by mistake had hit an emergency button. The delay definitely caused my chaos run but I don’t want to blame the photographer, things like this happen.”
