Lake Placid (RWH) Tucker West has surprised everyone with a victory in the Viessmann Luge World Cup. The 19-year-old student took the first world cup victory for the US in 17 years in the third race of the season on his home track in Lake Placid. The last US winner was Wendel Suckow in the run-up to the Olympics in Nagano (JAP) on 16 February 1997. West, who came 22nd in the Sochi Winter Olympics, won a gold medal with the US relay team at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Innsbruck in 2012. In Lake Placid, West had a compelling lead of over seven tenths of a second on Austria’s Wolfgang Kindl, who took gold on the challenging artificial track on Mount Van Hoevenberg at the Junior World Championships in 2008. Third place went to Italy’s Dominik Fischnaller. Olympic Champion Felix Loch of Germany, who won both of the opening races in Innsbruck-Igls, was only 6th. But after the first three races, the three-times World Champion still heads the overall Viessmann World Cup rankings with 250 points, closely followed by Dominik Fischnaller with 240 points and Wolfgang Kindl, who now has 187 points. The next round in the Viessmann World Cup will be held next Friday and Saturday (12-13 December) in Calgary, Canada. Quotes Tucker West (USA, 2012 YOG gold medallist in the team relay) “It all came together today. It was my home track, my friends and family were cheering me on. That really pushed me. I made one small error, but I knew that I could make up for it at the bottom. I was really frustrated when I didn’t manage to qualify for Igls last week. But I just forgot about it and concentrated on the race in Lake Placid.” Wolfgang Kindl (AUT, 2008 Junior World Champion) “The US tracks seem to agree with me. Last winter I celebrated my best result to date when I came third in Park City. And now I’ve made it into second. There was no beating Tucker West: what an amazing lead.” Dominik Fischnaller (ITA, 2014 European Championship bronze medallist and sixth in the Olympics) “The second run was a disaster. I can consider myself lucky that I made it onto the podium in third place.”