Russian winning streak broken – Pigneter/Clara new Doubles Champions
After having won three consecutive titles Russia's Pavel Porshnev/Ivan Lazarev had to give up any dreams of defending their title after the first run already. Their successors were Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) who could complete their collection of gold medals. So far they never had won a European title. "We wanted to win here and were ready to give whatever it takes. Two years ago in Olang we had to settle for silver, so this gold medal here was our biggest goal in this season", said Florian Clara. But they were very well aware that it would not be easy: "We were quite impressed by the times Schopf/Schopf achieved here. We thought it would be really difficult to beat them. In yesterday's team event we took a high risk and had a really good run." Which apparently gave them all the confidence they needed for today's race, as they won with the fastest times in both runs, with a winning margin of 1,52 seconds. If necessary, they could have gone faster: "The bottom part of the second run we finished with a safety run", said Clara.
All joy and happiness were Poland's silver medallists. After one bronze medal in European Championships (2002) and three bronze medals in World Championships (2000, 2005 and 2009) Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek achieved not only their best career result but also the best result for Poland since 1991 when Krzysztof Niewiadomski/Oktawian Samulsi became European Champions. Even though there performance had been improving during the season, they had not counted on winning a silver medal: "It came as quite a surprise, because we were far behind in the training runs. But we worked a lot for the team competition and changed the runners. Today we used the same equipment again and it worked well", said Waniczek. They were nervous before the second run, mainly because they were dreading finishing third once again.
Third place was taken by Russia's Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov, who always seem to manage to perform best in major events. They sustained the attack of Christian and Andreas Schopf (AUT) who wanted to climb the podium with a good second run. But Andreas Schopf was hindered by his back injury which had been taken care of by a doctor last night. So they had to settle for the unwanted fourth place.
After two runs in the women's event Ekatharina Lavrentjeva took the lead, even though the fastest times were achieved by Renate Gietl (ITA) in the first run and Evelyn Lanthaler (ITA) in the second run. Melanie Batkowski (AUT) is ranked fourth with all chances for a medal as there is only a 45 hundredths of a second gap between the first four athletes which promises an exciting final run tomorrow, Sunday.
Final Results Doubles (13):
1.Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:15,09(1), 1:15,68(1), 2:30,77
2. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:15,71(2), 1:16,58(2), 2:32,29
3. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 1:15,85(3), 1:16,73(3), 2:32,58
4. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:16,09(4),1:17,48(5), 2:33,57
5. Thomas KAMMERLANDER/Christoph REGENSBURGER (AUT), 1:17,17(7), 1:17,24(4), 2:34,41
6. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:16,88(5), 1:17,69(6), 2:34,57
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