Lake Placid (pps) A veritable masterpiece: Thanks to their sixth victory at the 8th stop of the Viessmann Luge World Cup series on the demanding artificially refrigerated track in Lake Placid (U.S. state of New York) Germany’s World Champions Tobias Wendl-Tobias Arlt prematurely won the overall World Cup doubles rankings. The Canadian doubles team with Tristan Walker-Justin Snith earned the gold medal at the American-Pacific Championships of the International Luge Federation that were carried out within the World Cup event.
Thanks to their 16th individual World Cup victory Wendl-Arlt, who collected their first World Championship title last week, earned the “Joska” crystal award for the overall World Champions for the second time after 2010-2011. With a winning margin of 129 points ahead of the season final on the future Olympic track in Sochi, Russia, the overall victory is a sure thing for the team from Bavaria. Compatriots Toni Eggert-Sascha Benecken, on second position on the overall rankings, posted a seventh-place result in Lake Placid.
Former European Champions Peter Penz-Georg Fischler of Austria finished in second position, followed by Italians Christian Oberstolz-Patrick Gruber on third place.
With a fourth-place finish in the World Cup, Walker-Snith won the 2nd edition of the FIL American-Pacific Championships that were simultaneously carried out in a “race-in-race” format. The silver medal went to the U.S. doubles team of Mathew Mortensen-Preston Griffal, their compatriots Jake Hyrns-Andrew Sherk earned bronze.
The final of the World Cup series will be carried out on the future Olympic track in Sochi, Russia on February 23-24, 2013.
The complete result lists can be downloaded at www.fil-luge.org
Quotes
Tobias Wendl (GER / 2013 World Champion, 2008 World silver medalist, overall World Cup winner in 2010-2011)
“The track here in Lake Placid is the most demanding in the world for doubles teams and very difficult to master. We never reckoned with a victory here. And even less wrapping up the overall World Cup victory.”
Peter Penz
(AUT / 2011 European Champion, 2011 World bronze medalist)
“Well, it could have been better. We had two solid runs.”
Christian Oberstolz (I
TA / 2009 European Champion, 2011 World silver medalist)
"It’s always great to earn a podium finish. But we had good runs and should have even done better.”
