Kierspel/Wichan (GER) claim first World Cup win in front of home crowd Unterammergau (ck) - „Unbelievable, we still cannot believe it“, said Bjoern Kierspel and Christian Wichan (GER), who claimed their first world cup win in Unterammergau in Germany. They already achieved the second best time in the training run early in the morning and proved their constantly improving performance. When the race which was due to the warm weather held in one run only, started, they were certainly among the contenders for a spot on the podium. “The track conditions were softer than what we had in the last days, but they managed to keep the track in great shape. We had two fantastic runs today on a fantastic track and I want to say thank you to everybody who has been working on the track here in Unterammergau”, said Kierspel. The role as the local heroes did not increase their stress level. “It was not much different from any other race. I thought, just get going, focus on your run and there will be a result at the end”, said Wichan. However, that the result was a first place came as a bit of a surprise. “After the training run I dared to start thinking of a podium finish, but that we actually won is just fantastic“, said Kierspel. The decision was a tight one, only four hundredths of a second were between the winners and the runners up, Christian Schatz/Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT), who seemed to have the best hunch for the set up and achieved their best world cup result in four years. “We totally changed the equipment between the training run and the race and it worked perfectly well. We took a high risk and totally relied on it”, said Mühlbacher. “We made a major mistake in that sharp curve near the start and I seriously doubted that we would do any good”, said Schatz. “At the end it was so close and it is of course great that we became second, but also a bit sad that we gave away the first place.” Satisfied with their third place were defeated serial winners Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) whose main focus is the overall World Cup. “It was a difficult race and it was important to rank ahead of the Russians and put some points between us and them”, said Pigneter. Before the race in Unterammergau Pavel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev and Pigneter/Clara were tied in the leading position in the World Cup. The Russians finished sixth, only one hundredth behind the fifth and two hundredths behind the fourth. Two weeks before the World Cup Final in Olang Pigneter/Clara have a 20 point margin ahead of the Russians. “This is important, because Olang is the secret home track of the Russians”, added Pigneter. Final Results Doubles (10): 1. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER), 1:14,30 2. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:14,34 3. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:14,48 4. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:14,55 5. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:14,56 6. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:14,57 7. Thomas SCHOPF/Andreas SCHÖPF (AUT), 1:14,60 8. Florian BREITENBERGER/David MAIR (ITA), 1:16,19 World Cup Ranking (5/6): 1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 425 2. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 405 3. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT) 345 4. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT) 325 5. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER) 196 6. Stanislav KOVSHIK/Ilya TARASOV (RUS) 167 7. Thomas SCHOPF/Andreas SCHÖPF (AUT) 161 8. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) 145