Altenberg. The silver medalist at the World Championships Armin Zöggeler celebrated his third World Cup victory in this season. In both runs of the VIESSMANN luge World Cup at the luge and bobsled track in Altenberg, the Italian was almost two tenths of a second faster than Georg Hackl (1:50.166 minutes) and, with a total time of 1:49.685 minutes, was clearly in the lead. In the first run, Zöggeler had already beaten the track record, which Jens Müller (54.889 seconds) had set up three years ago, by more than a tenth of a second (54.725 seconds). Markus Prock from Austria (1:50.198) finished in third place.
Karsten Albert from Oberhof/GER (1:50,314) finished at rank four, in front of World- and European Champion Jens Müller (1:50.460).
Before the „Travelling luge circus“ will leave Europe for Japan and the USA, Zöggeler increased his lead in the Overall World Cup rating with his victory in Altenberg (430), in front of the three Germans Hackl (361), Müller (350) and Albert (333).
For the German lugers, a successful World Cup weekend had already begun on Saturday: In the women’s competition Sylke Otto won in front of Silke Kraushaar and Sonja Wiedemann; Andre Florschütz and Thorsten Wustlich were first in the double’s competition and celebrated their first World Cup victory.
Opinions
Armin Zöggeler: „In both runs everything simply went perfect for me, also regarding my equipment. However, I don’t see myself as a favorite for the World Championships because of this.“
Georg Hackl: „My second run went extremely fine, which certainly did me very good. Regarding the Overall World Cup, I certainly want to attack Armin.“
