World Championship preview, men: More than half a dozen title candidates

Winterberg (RWH) There has never been so much strength in depth at the head of the field. More than half a dozen lugers are in with a chance of winning gold at the 48th World Championships of the International Luge Federation (FIL) on 27 January 2019.

They include three Austrians in the shape of defending champions Wolfgang Kindl (Photo, left), Olympic Champion David Gleirscher, and Reinhard Egger, the surprise of the season. Of course the Russian Semen Pavlichenko, the 2015 World Champion and three-time European champion, and compatriot Roman Repilov, overall winner of the Viessmann Luge World Cup and World Championship silver medallist in 2017, are also in the hunt. And we can’t forget the host nation with Felix Loch, Olympic Champion in 2010 and 2014, even though he travels to the Hochsauerland without a win this season, and Johannes Ludwig, who is now wearing the yellow jersey as leader of the Viessmann Luge World Cup. Dominik Fischnaller, World Championship bronze medallist in 2017 and Olympic fourth, and Chris Mazdzer (Photo, left down) , who won Olympic silver in 2018 without once standing on the winners’ podium during the 2017/2018 season, are both considered outsiders.

The post-Olympic winter has produced five different winners so far. The Olympic bronze medallist Ludwig, who took his first win in the Viessmann Luge World Cup back in 2016 at the World Championship venue of Winterberg, won the season opener in Innsbruck. Kindl won three times in succession before a disqualification for an overweight sled took the wind out of his sails in Lake Placid. Roman Repilov took two victories there, while Semen Pavlichenko proved unbeatable in Sigulda. And Reinhard Egger took advantage of the conditions in Königssee when he emerged as the winner of the cancelled race.

The 28-year-old has entered the spotlight this winter, lying fourth overall behind Ludwig (473 points), Kindl (440) and Loch (437). It is almost a miracle that the two-time Olympic starter is able to compete in the Viessmann Luge World Cup at all.

In summer 2018, the Tyrolean was lucky to survive an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok. Together with his girlfriend Theresa, Egger had reached the summit of the 3,726-metre volcano Rinjani after a four-hour climb. They enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and the amazing view of the crater lake together. They were making their way back down when a sudden earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale shook the region. “We had a huge guardian angel watching over us”, Egger explained later.

Initially thrown to the ground, they picked themselves up and Egger led his girlfriend back down the valley, keeping a firm grip on her rucksack. Accompanied by aftershocks, travelling across seemingly endless scree and unexpected cracks in the ground, they finally made it back to the destroyed base camp after a two-hour ordeal. Exhausted and tired, but happy to be alive, they were then taken by bus to a hotel. Reinhard Egger and his girlfriend survived the earthquake on the resort island of Lombok. According to official figures, there were 16 fatalities.