World Champion Kindl secures second win of the season

Whistler (RWH) Wolfgang Kindl has hit his stride. Just five days after his win in the BMW Sprint World Cup on his home track in Innsbruck-Igls, the 2017 World Champion has now celebrated his second win of the season. At the Viessmann World Cup race at Whistler Sliding Centre in Canada, the Austrian athlete celebrated the sixth race win of his career and extended his lead in the overall standings.

At the track used for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, Kindl (who now has 270 points under his belt), pushed the two-time Olympic Champion Felix Loch of Germany and his own team mate Reinhard Egger back into second and third place. Loch won the first of his two Olympic medals in the men’s singles here on this high-speed track and also won the World Championships here in 2013.

During the first heat, the two-year-old track record (50.109) set by the USA’s Tucker West was broken by several athletes. Wolfgang Kindl ultimately set the final record with a time of 49.837 seconds. A total of eight athletes managed to break the 50-second mark, while as many as 13 broke the old track record.

In the overall standings, Kindl is followed by the race winner from Innsbruck, Johannes Ludwig (GER), on 215 points and Felix Loch in third with 205 points.

Quotes

Wolfgang Kindl (AUT / 2017 World Champion, 2017 Sprint World Champion, bronze medallist at the 2015 and 2016 World Championships)

“I never expected to be able to win on this track with its flat stretch at the start. Despite a few ongoing aches and pains, things are going very well for me. Of course, it is my goal to win the overall standings of the World Cup one day. Recently, I have always managed to be one of the front runners, but it has never actually come to anything yet.”

Felix Loch (GER / Olympic gold medallist in 2010 and 2014, Olympic gold medallist in the team relay in 2014, five-time World Champion in the men’s singles)

“It will do. Wolfgang Kindl was just too good here. During the first heat, I had a lot of work to do on corners 12 and 13. My second run wasn’t perfect either. It was pretty tight, but I am really happy with second place.”

Reinhard Egger (AUT / Olympic qualifier in 2014 and 2018)

“I have finished fourth in World Cup races four or five times now but have never made it onto the podium. Now I am just really relieved to have finally pulled it off.”