Thrilling Duel Between Taubitz And Fräbel For Gold

Halfway Through Women's Singles Luge At The Winter Olympics

Cortina d'Ampezzo (FIL/09 Feb 2026) The battle for the gold medal in the women's singles event at the Cortina Sliding Center is shaping up to be a duel between two German athletes: Julia Taubitz and Merle Fräbel. In the first run, Fräbel set a track record of 52.590 seconds on the 1,410-meter-long ice track. In the second run, Taubitz countered with a time of 52.550 seconds. This puts the 29-year-old world champion 0.061 seconds ahead of her 22-year-old teammate.

“The second run was super cool, I was really in the flow and could enjoy it to the full. It was great,” said Taubitz, “that we created such a small buffer for ourselves, I didn't expect that.”

There is already a significant gap between the two Germans and Elina Bota. The Latvian, who steadily improved the start record to 3.891 seconds, was 0.491 seconds slower than Taubitz. Bota had pushed Verena Hofer out of third place with a good second run. The Italian is 60 thousandths of a second behind Bota.

Ashley Farquharson (USA) is 53 thousandths behind Hofer, ahead of Sandra Robatscher (Italy/0.613). Lisa Schulte (Austria) is in seventh place, 0.678 seconds behind Taubitz. The World Cup leader had already made contact with the barrier at the start of the first run, losing momentum and time.

Even Emily Fischnaller (USA), who is 0.684 seconds behind the leader in eighth place, still has a chance of winning the bronze medal. She is only 0.178 seconds behind Bota, who is in third place at the halfway stage.

The third run will take place on Tuesday at 5 p.m., with the final decision coming in the fourth run at 6:35 p.m.