Oberperfuss - Never in the entire history of the Natural Track Luge World Cup an athlete has won six consecutive races, meaning all races of the season. With today´s win Ekatherina Lavrentjeva continued her incredible winning streak and now hold all records. “I had a little mistake in the second run, but this really does not matter”, the happy winner said. For a split second it looked like she would fall behind and second ranked Melanie Batkowski (AUT) would get the chance to win her first World Cup. But in the end Lavrentjeva was up in front once again. Melanie Batkowski did not mind either. She made her way into the top class of competitors and knows very well that her time is still to come. The 17-year old student finished never worse than 4th, had three podiums in this season and this after a lung infection back in September and her nostrils taken out in October. “I appreciate that I have been so successful already being so young and I will try to do my best in future”, she promises. Third became Renate Gietl (ITA), who had an excellent season herself with five podiums which remained almost unseen in the shadow of Lavrentjeva´s spectacular performance. Her best career result achieved Germany´s Michaela Maurer ranked fourth. “I was surprised myself when I saw my time in the second run. But then again, I have always like this track, today I felt really good, from getting up in the morning, the start of the race and the race itself, everything felt just perfectly at ease”, the 24-year-old student said. With this result her season found a good ending as she had suffered a back injury in January in the Kindberg World Cup from which she never really recovered. “It always hurt and then I had an infection, so now I hope I can fully recover and prepare well for next winter. Knowing that I am already capable of matching the best athletes in at least one run gives me a lot of motivation for the future.” The men´s event had a tight finish between Patrick Pigneter (ITA) and Gernot Schwab (AUT), but in the end Pigneter with winning once and being runner up fife times won over Schwab with three season wins. “It was really close in the end and after Gernot´s two wins in Canada I saw my chances decline. But then he became sick and it became easier for me”, Pigneter said. “I am so young and have everything in front of me and have achieved so much already”, said the 19-year-old student, reviewing a season in which a bronze medal in the European Championships was his least result. His Austrian competitor Gernot Schwab, who had been weakened by a flu, finished third, but also can look back to a great season: “Sure I would have liked to win the World Cup as I already have been runner up once. It was bad luck that I became sick just now, but I am sure that at another time the luck will be on my side. I have said this before and I was right and I believe in justice in life. Basically my season was a good one, but today I was just too weak. I could feel it when I walked up the track and I really had to concentrate hard. Two days ago I had 38,7 degrees fever and only decided yesterday that I would race here.” The actual winner of today´s race was Italian Martin Psenner, who was the fastest in the second run: “I did quite well in training already and I did hope for a good result. It was a difficult race with the changing weather conditions, but I could adjust pretty well. I am happy that the season had a good end for me, I have had some problems with a knee injury and will need surgery after the season. What I will do next year, well, I have not yet made up my mind”, said Psenner. Results: Final Results Women: 1. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 1:18,22(1), 1:17,56(3), 2:35,78 2. Melanie BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:18,63(2), 1:17,36(2), 2:35,99 3. Renate GIETL (ITA), 1:19,72(3), 1:17,21(1), 2:36,93 4. Michaela MAURER (GER), 1:21,05(7), 1:18,55(4), 2:39,60 5. Imelda GRUBER (ITA), 1:20,54(5), 1:19,11(6), 2:39,65 6. Christa GIETL (ITA), 1:20,16(4), 1:20,01(9), 2:40,17 7. Tamara SCHWARZ (ITA), 1:21,15(8), 1:19,09(5), 2:40,24 8. Sabine KOGLER (AUT), 1:20,96(6), 1:19,49(8), 2:40,45 9. Marlies WAGNER (AUT), 1:22,53(9), 1:19,17(7), 2:41,70 10. Kinga GAWLAS (POL), 1:23,16(11), 1:21,00(10), 2:44,16 11. Tina UNTERBERGER (AUT), 1:22,96(10), 1:26,35(12), 2:49,31 12. Veronika NACHMANN (GER), 1:30,69(12), 1:24,96(11), 2:55,65 Final Results Men: 1. Martin PSENNER (ITA), 1.16,06(2), 1:15,56(1), 2:31,62 2. Patrick PIGNETER (ITA), 1:15,98(1), 1:15,97(2), 2:31,95 3. Gernot SCHWAB (AUT), 1:16,43(4), 1:15,99(3), 2:32,42 4. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA), 1:16,40(3), 1:16,04(4), 2:32,44 5. Marcus GRAUSAM (GER), 1:16,49(5), 1:16,20(6), 2:32,69 6. Philipp WAGNER (AUT), 1:16,91(7), 1:16,65(8), 2:33,56 7. Mathias RAINER (ITA), 1:17,06(8), 1:16,61(7), 2:33,67 8. Thomas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:17,64(12), 1:16,15(5), 2:33,79 9. Florian BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:16,75(6), 1:17,27(11), 2:34,02 10. Florian BREITENBERGER (ITA), 1:17,30(10), 1:16,78(9), 2:34,08 11. Georg MAURER (GER), 1:17,92(14), 1:16,85(10), 2:34,77 12. Borut KRALJ (SLO), 1:17,16(9), 1:17,82(14), 2:34,98 Overall World Cup Final Ranking (6/6 after least result crossed off): Women: 1. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS) 500 2. Renate GIETL (ITA) 395 4. Melanie BATKOWSKI (AUT) 360 3. Christa GIETL (ITA) 350 5. Marlies WAGNER (AUT) 277 6. Imelda GRUBER (ITA) 251 8. Michaela MAURER (GER) 229 7. Tina UNTERBERGER (AUT) 184 9. Kinga GAWLAS (POL) 175 10. Sabine KOGLER (AUT) 138 10. Julia VETLOVA (RUS) 126 12. Veronika NACHMANN 92 18. Melissa JONES (CAN) 68 Men: 1. Patrick PIGNETER (ITA) 440 2. Gernot SCHWAB (AUT) 420 3. Florian BREITENBERGER (ITA) 339 4. Martin PSENNER (ITA) 309 5. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA) 296 6. Philipp WAGNER 282 7. Gerald KAMMERLANDER (AUT) 262 8. Florian BATKOWSKI (AUT) 226 9. Marcus GRAUSAM (GER) 211 10. Robert BATKOWSKI (AUT) 171 11. Ziga PAGON (SLO) 159 12. Georg MAURER (GER) 158 26. John GIBSON (CAN) 85 27. Corey PUSEY (CAN) 81 27. Kaj JOHNSON (CAN) 81 34. Julien SCHULTZ (USA) 52 42. Greg JONES (CAN) 18 48. Vincent SCHULTZ (USA) 13 Chris Karl FIL Media Service