What a comeback: Toni Eggert wins again with new partner Florian Müller

Lillehammer (FIL/30 Nov 2020) What a comeback for Toni Eggert in the EBERSPAECHER Luge World Cup. After a year's break, the 36-year-old doubles specialist won his 55th World Cup race in Lillehammer. However, he no longer competed with his long-standing partner Sascha Benecken, but with his new, 23-year-old co-pilot Florian Müller. The duo took just 1:33.864 seconds to complete the course. An interesting fact: Toni Eggert holds both records for the doubles. On 20 January 2018, he set a new record with Sascha Benecken, taking just 2.268 seconds at the start, and since 30 November 2024, he now helds the track record of 46.807 seconds. ‘We proved that we are racers on this fast and difficult track,’ said Eggert, “and that gives us confidence for the next few weeks.” Müller added: “It was a lot of fun. Toni and I are a great team.” And the new German head coach Patric Leitner said: ’Respect and recognition for Toni and Florian. First World Cup race, first victory. They have worked really well together. It's amazing, it couldn't be going any better.’

Just the day before, Toni Eggert was completely dissatisfied after finishing second in the Nations Cup behind the US junior double Marcus Müller and Ansel Haugsjaa. This result was absolutely not what the eleven-time World Champion and six-time overall World Cup winner had hoped for. But after the race, he was positive: ‘We were able to put everything together well today. A lot of things are still difficult for us, we still make mistakes sometimes because we are not yet used to each other as a team. But that's completely normal. We try to work on new things every day and make progress every day.’

Martins Bots and Roberts Plume of Latvia finished second, 0.132 seconds back. They were a little disappointed with their performance. ‘We always want to win,’ said Plume, ‘we've only had a really good race when we've won.’ Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl have the same attitude. The title defenders in the overall World Cup from Austria only came in seventh in the first heat, but were able to advance to third place (0.224 seconds behind). ‘We had the wrong setup, were too cautious on the track,’ said front man Steu, ‘during the break we made some changes.’ With success.

Fourth place went to Austrian World Champions Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schöpf, 0.259 seconds behind the winners. Six-time Olympic Champions Tobias Wendl-Tobias Arlt came in fifth, 0.276 seconds behind the winners, ahead of their German teammates Hannes Orlamünder-Paul Gubitz (0.327).