FIL PEWO World Cup - Deutschnofen, Wrap Up

Press Information Saturday, January 31st, 2009
PEWO World Cup/January 30th - 31st 2009 Deutschnofen/Nova Ponente (ITA)


Lavrentjeva back on top, Pigneter wins in doubles and singles

In a spectacular race with an interruption due to a light problem the new World Cup leader Patrick Pigneter showed excellent nerves. His Italian teammate, Hannes Clara, had to stop his run and repeat it as the lights went off in a stretch of the track during his run. At the top Pigneter and Thomas Schopf, ranked second after the first run, had to wait for Clara to walk back to the start and retake his run.

“It was difficult”, said Pigneter who won in the doubles as well as the singles event within one day. “It is already exhausting to build up the right focus four times in a day, but today it was five times. But I had an excellent run and I felt really good.”
After two third place finishes Austria´s Thomas Schopf achieved his best career result by coming in second. “I managed to keep cool. I had two small mistakes in my run, but altogether I am glad that I did pretty well in spite of the situation with the light.”

Most affected of course was Hannes Clara who went through an emotional rollercoaster: “I saw that it was dark ahead of me, but first I thought it was just one lamp which did not work. When I saw that a whole section of the track was dark, I just stopped. First I felt like in a shock, I was not my usual self and everything felt strange. But then I had a cup of tea and tried to focus again”, said Clara who finished third.

On the women's side Russia´s record breaker is back on top: Ekatharina Lavrentjeva has won her first race in this season and the 26th of her career. With Evelyn Lanthaler (ITA) as runner up a new face was seen on the podium: “So far a fifth place was my best result so my goal was to finish fourth. Even though my training performance was good I never would have thought that I could do so well here.” She is still a junior, so her next race will be next week´s European Junior Championships before she will return to her hometown Moos/Passeier for the World Championships.

Serial winner Renate Gietl (ITA) had to settle for the third place. “I had a mistake in the first run which caused the time gap which I did not manage to make up for in the second run. But I have had three perfect races this season, so I am still satisfied”, she said.

“The World Championships in two weeks are our most important goal in this season and of course it is great that right now everything is going so well for us”, said Patrick Pigneter after his second consecutive win in the doubles event. But he also concedes it was not an easy win: “This track has its three or four key passages and if you make a mistake there, you lose.” As it turns out, Pigneter and team mate Florain Clara did not make any mistakes and won with a margin of more than half a second. Russia´s Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev finished second, but have definitely not given up their hopes for the overall PEWO World Cup. With only 25 points behind Pigneter/Clara they will start into the grand final which will be held in their home country, in Ekaterinburg.

Third went to Christian and Andreas Schopf (AUT) who seem to be in top shape for the World Championships and believe that they can do even better: “We have tried a lot of different things with our equipment early in the season, but now we have found the perfect setup. Still, we are making little mistakes and losing time. We are happy with the result today, but the runs were not as good as they could have been.” They will go straight from Deutschnofen/Nova Ponente to Passeier to do some practise runs on the track there. “But we will not stay there all the time, we will practise on different tracks and get as much time on the sled as we can.”

There will be a three weeks break in the PEWO World Cup before the grand final in Ekaterinburg, Russia, with two races starting on February 22nd.


Final Results:

Women (16):
1. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 0:55,25(1), 0:55,27(1), 1:50,52
2. Evelyn LANTHALER (ITA), 0:55,50(3), 0:55,40(2), 1:50,90
3. Renate GIETL (ITA), 0:55,49(2), 0:55,43(3), 1:50,92
4. Melanie BATKOWSKI (AUT), 0:55,67(4), 0:56,08(4), 1:51,75
5. Renate KASSLATTER (ITA), 0:56,93(9), 0:56,55(5), 1:53,48
6. Tamara SCHWARZ (ITA), 0:56,54(5), 0:57,08(8), 1:53,62
7. Julia VETLOVA (RUS), 0:56,61(6), 0:57,07(7), 1:53,68
8. Michaela MAURER (GER), 0:56,82(8), 0:56,89(6), 1:53,71
9. Tina UNTERBERGER (AUT), 1:53,93
10. Marlies WAGNER (AUT), 1:54,31



Men (39):
1. Patrick PIGNETER (ITA), 0:53,51(1), 0:54,12(1), 1:47,63
2. Thomas SCHOPF (AUT), 0:53,88(2), 0:54,44(2), 1:48,32
3. Hannes CLARA (ITA), 0:54,03(3), 0:54,64(4), 1:48,67

4. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA), 0:54,59(6), 0:54,47(3), 1:49,06
5. Rudi RESCH (ITA), 0:54,45(4), 0:54,6(5), 1:49,12
6. Andreas CASTIGLIONI (ITA), 0:54,74(7), 0:54,80(6), 1:49,54
7. Stefan GRUBER (ITA), 0:54,47(5), 0:55,15(7), 1:49,62
8. Michael SCHEIKL (AUT), 0:55,03(9), 0:55,21(8), 1:50,24
9. Robert BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:50,50
10. Gernot SCHWAB (AUT), 1:50,52
11. Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:50,94
12. Florian BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:50,96
13. Gerald KAMMERLANDER (AUT), 1:50,97
14. Georg MAURER (GER), 1:51,00
20. Kaj JOHNSON (CAN), 1:53,28
25. John GIBSON (CAN), 1:54,77
29. Greg JONES (CAN), 1:58,33


Doubles (12):
1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 0:57,77 (1), 0:57,70(1), 1:55,47
2. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 0:58,33(2), 0:58,47(2), 1:56,80
3. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 0:58,54(3), 0:58,65(3), 1:57,19
4. Aleksandr EGEROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 0:58,96(4), 0:59,05(4), 1:58,01
5. Thomas WEISS/Andreas LEITER(ITA), 0:59,41(5), 0:59,34(5), 1:58,75
6. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 0:59,79(7), 0:59,48(6), 1:59,48
7. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:59,58
8. Christoph KNAUDER/Thomas KNAUDER (AUT), 2:00,70
10. Kaj JOHNSON/Greg JONES (CAN), 1:02,62(10), 1:02,52(10), 2:05,14

All Photos Credit: FIL/Sobe

FIL PEWO World Cup - Deutschnofen, Preview

FIL PEWO World Cup Natural Track
Press Information, Thursday, January 29th, 2009
FIL PEWO World Cup in Deutschnofen/Nova Ponente (ITA)

Early World Cup decisions on a new track

The fourth out of six world cup races will be an early decision for the overall ranking in the PEWO World Cup. Deutschnofen/Nova Ponenete is a new track on the tour this will be the first World Cup ever hosted there. However, the track is not an unknown to the athletes, almost all nations have been practising there and know very well what to expect.

Spectators can expect a tight head-to-head race between Gerald Kammerlander (AUT) and Patrick Pigneter (ITA) as only one point separates them in the PEWO overall World Cup ranking.

With three wins in three races Renate Gietl (ITA) will be the clear favourite in her home country.
In the doubleseater event nothing has been decided yet, just as every year four nations – Russia, Austria, Poland and Italy - are fighting for the number one position.

New to the World Cup circuit are two Korean sliders; Yamo Hyun and Lee Jenng-II.
[ Luge News note: These sliders are so new they aren't listed in the FIL Athlete database - if I messed up their names any help would be appreciated. And, I also have to say; that looks like it hurt! ]

In the first race of the season FIL trainer Karl Flacher denied them a start permit as the risk would have been too high. In the meantime they have been practising a lot and have learned to manage the steep racetracks. Before they will be able to chase the top performers, it will take a lot more trainings runs, though.

The PEWO World Cup in Deutschnofen/Nova Ponente will be a night event. Training runs will be held on Friday and Saturday, the competition will start on Saturday at 2pm.


Track Info:
Length of track: 871 meters
Altitude of Start: 1505 m above sea level
Altitude of Finish: 1384 m
Difference between start and finish: 121 m
Average descent: 13%
Maximum descent: 16%
Minimum descent: 5%


Program:
Friday, 30.01.2009:
12.00pm: Team Captain´s Meeting
3.00pm: 1.Training run women and men
6.00pm: 2.Training run women and men
afterwards 1.Training run doubles
afterwards Opening Ceremony

Saturday, 31.01.2009:
1.00pm: 2.Training run doubles
2.00pm: 1.competition run doubles
3.00pm: 2.competition run doubles
afterwards Flower Ceremony
4.00pm: 1.competition run women and men
6.00pm: 2.competition run women and men
afterwards Flower Ceremony
afterwards: Medal Ceremonies

All Photos Credit to: FIL/Sobe

2009 Natural Track World Cup #3 Unterammergau, Germany

Team Canada recaps the 3rd Natural Track World Cup event of 2009:

For the first day of training our hopes of sliding on hard cold ice were literally washed away as the weather in Unterammergau took a turn for the worse and poured rain all day. This caused the ice on the track to be very soft which resulted in slower speeds for the whole field. Knowing that Unterammergau is notoriously a very speedy track we were disappointed that we would not experience the full speeds on our first day of training. The highlight of the day was hitting the brakes in the finish area (which resembled a swimming pool) and having a tidal wave slow you to a soaking halt! Another training note: Greg and Kaj for the second time entered a World Cup race as a doubles team. The slushy conditions also made for a very wet, cold, and exhilarating doubles training run.

Saturday’s program featured the doubles race. Greg and Kaj had a very busy day with three doubles runs. They were feeling more and more confident with each run and claimed two personal victories. They were faster with every consecutive run and their two race runs were within three tenths of one another. Greg and Kaj are looking forward to more doubles training and racing and to learning more about the technique of doubles sliding.

Sunday was the main event: the Men’s Singles race. This week, the full crew of John Gibson, Greg Jones, and Kaj Johnson were entered to represent Canada. The day’s conditions were the first victory of the day; the temperatures were low and the ice was hard and fast. Unfortunately, John woke up feeling flu-like symptoms but pulled himself together enough to start in the race.

All three of us had our fastest runs on the track in our first race runs, something that we are always striving for. This had John placed in 21st, Greg in 20th, and Kaj in 14th position for the start of the second run. John was first up for the Canadians and had a slightly slower second run but maintained his 21st position. Greg was very consistent coming in only three tenths slower than his first run and moved into 19th position. Kaj was one of the few athletes in the field to have a faster second run than his first, which helped to propel him into 13th position in the final results. In the end, this race held many victories for the small Canadian contingent. For starters, both Greg and Kaj had their best ever World Cup finishes.

Secondly, Kaj’s start time for the second race run was the fastest in the whole field. And lastly, the fastest nation after the Italian and Austrian powerhouses was Canada. Astonishingly, these results were accomplished with no prior training on this track.

We leave Germany on an intense high. The next World Cup is in Deutchenhofen, Italy next weekend. We are hoping that this high will carry us to similar results there.

All for now,

The Canadian Natural Luge Team

FIL PEWO World Cup - Unterammergau, Preview

FIL PEWO World Cup Natural Track
Press Information, Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
PEWO World Cup/January 23rd - 25th, Unterammergau (GER)


After Four Years World Cup returns to Germany

It has been a while since the last Luge World Cup has been held in Germany, January 2005 to be precise. Among the current crop of star sliders only Renate Gietl (ITA) has ever experienced the feeling of winning in the Bavarian village. She has won the race four years ago.

On the men's side, both of the World Cups ever held in Unterammergau, have been won by Anton Blasbichler (ITA). The two time World Champion is still a constant member of the Italian team, but has not won a race in four years. None of the currently active doubles teams have ever finished top three in Unterammergau.

In addition to women's perennial favourites, Renate Gietl and Ekatharina Lavrentjeva (RUS) the shooting star of the season, Gerald Kammerlander will be one of the hunted after his recent win in Umhausen. And, of course, the German team under the guidance of Gerhard Pilz hopes to be able to use the benefit of competing on home soil to it's advantage
.
Training runs will be held on Friday and Saturday morning, the competition will start on Saturday at 11:30am


Unterammergau Track Info:
Length of track: 1100 meters
Width: 3 meters
Altitude of Start: 999 m above sea level
Altitude of Finish: 834 m
Difference between start and finish: 165 m
Average descent: 15%

Program:
Friday, 23.1.2009:
12.00pm: Team Captain´s Meeting
1.30pm: 1.Training run women and men
2.30pm: 1.Training run doubles
7pm: Opening Ceremony

Saturday, 24.1.2009:
10.00am: 2.Trainings run doubles
afterward 2. training run women
11.30am: 1.competition run doubles
1.00pm: 2.competition run doubles
afterwards Flower Ceremony
2.00pm: 2. training run men

Sunday, 25.1.2009:
11.00am: 1.competition run women and men
1.00pm: 2.competition run women and men
afterwards Flower Ceremony
3.00pm: Medal Ceremonies

2009 Natural Track World Cup #2 Umhausen, Austria

After competing in the first World Cup event of the year as a team of one Kaj was happy to be joined by his two teammates, John Gibson and Greg Jones, this week. The team began with a few days of training at the host track of the upcoming World Championships in Passeier, Italy.

During training Greg Jones suffered a minor crash which resulted in a bruised heel and sprained ankle. After examination it was revealed that the injury would sideline him for the upcoming race in Umhausen, Austria. Kaj and John on the other hand, were healthy and well felt prepared.

Umhausen would be the first night race of the season which always presents difficulties for athletes as they work to stay mentally focused well into the evening. So, after a full day of waiting and watching, Kaj and John prepared for their evening runs which left them in positions 18th and 16th respectively.

On the second day of racing Kaj and John's runs didn't come until late in the day. After a full day's sliding the track’s breaking areas had deteriorated which caused Kaj and John minor grief for their final runs. John moved to 21st position and Kaj to fell to 17th. They were obviously slightly disappointed with their fall in the standings but hope to build on the good points from the race.

Greg was ready to continue training as of, Janurary 19th and the team is now looking forward to the next stop on the World Cup circuit, Unteramergau Germany.

FIL PEWO World Cup - Umhausen, Media Release

FIL PEWO World Cup Natural Track
Press Information, Saturday, January 17th, 2009
PEWO World Cup/January 17th /18th, Umhausen (AUT)

Kammerlander (AUT) wins home race

Thomas Kammerlander - photo credit: FIL/Sobe

With a track record in his first run and the second best time in the second run, local hero Thomas Kammerlander showed that currently he is the man to beat. “I don´t know what changed from last year to now, I think I am taking a higher risk, maybe I was holding back too much in the past years”, said the young Austrian, who joined the military last spring. “My equipment is really perfect, I make less mistakes than in the last years and everything is going just very, very well.” He will need a top-three result in the overall world cup or a medal in the World Championships to maintain his position in the military. Currently he is the only natural track luge athlete who has been approved as a full time athlete soldier.
Runner up Patrick Pigneter (ITA) proved with the fastest time in the second run, that he has fully recovered from last week´s crash. “I ruined my sled in this crash and I could not try a new one, because I had too much pain until yesterday. So I used my very old one for the second run”, he said.

European Champion Robert Batkowski showed with his third place, that he is always good for a surprise. “I am satisfied with the result, but the time gaps are still too big. I will have to analyse that and see where the problem is.”

In the women´s event Renate Gietl (ITA) and Ekatharina Lavrentjeva (RUS) switched roles from last year to this year. Whereas the Russian shocked her competitors with one track record after the other and Gietl could reach the same time now and then, it is just the other way round in this winter: Renate Gietl seems to be the one who can produce one fastest run after the other. “I do not even know what exactly has changed”, she said. “My equipment is really perfect and I just feel in good shape and really strong.” So Gietl won once again and Lavrentjeva had to settle for second, just like one week ago. With a good second run Melanie Batkowski could improve her ranking and took the third spot on the podium. She was still a little handicapped by a knee injury suffered in St Sebastian, but hopes to be fully fit next week in Germany.

With a “fantastic first run, no risk in the second run” the Russian double Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev secured their second win in the second race. With them coming first, Pigneter/Clara and Laszczak/Waniczek second and third, the exact same result of last week was repeated. Patrick Pigneter (ITA) thinks that he and Florian Clara are ready to win again: “In our first run the runners did not work at all, so we changed everything and now I believe that our sled is really fast again”, he said, but he also knows that he has been lucky today: “We had a very critical moment in the second run, where we almost came to a halt, but then we managed to go full speed in the final part of the track.” He has fully recovered from his crash last week: “I did have some pain in my chest yesterday, but today I was fine.”

Poland´s Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek finished third and any podium result is a good result for them – it was their 23rd career podium finish today. “We tried a lot of different things in the training and now I think I have found the fastest setting for this technically challenging track”, he said. “But next week in Germany everything will be different again. At the last world cup race there, four years ago, it was extremely warm. We will have to see how the conditions are this year.”

Final Results:

Women:
1. Renate GIETL (ITA), 1:13,63(1), 1:13,92(1), 2:27,55
2. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 1:14,00(2), 1.14,19(2), 2:28,19
3. Melanie BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:15,04(4), 1:14,26(3), 2:29,30
4. Renate KASSLATTER (ITA), 1:14,73(3), 1:15,39(6), 2:30,12
5. Evelyn LANTHALER (ITA), 1:15,24(5), 1:15,21(4), 2:30,45
6. Marlies WAGNER (AUT), 1:15,35(6), 1:15,26(5), 2:30,61
7. Julia VETLOVA (RUS), 1:15,45(8), 1:15,58(7), 2:31,03
8. Tamara SCHWARZ (ITA), 1:15,37(7), 1:15,79(8), 2:31,16
9. Tina UNTERBERGER (AUT), 1:15,82(9), 1:16,17(9), 2:31,99
10. Michaela MAURER (GER), 1:16,95(10), 1:17,06(11), 2:34,01

Men:
1. Gerald KAMMERLANDER (AUT), 1:12,39(1), 1:13,08(2), 2:25,47
2. Patrick PIGNETER (ITA), 1:12,81(2), 1:12,78(1), 2:25,59
3. Robert BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:12,83(3), 1:13,63(8), 2:26,46
4. Hannes CLARA (ITA), 1:13,08(4), 1:13,46(5), 2:26,54
5. Florian BREITENBERGER (ITA), 1:13,29(7), 1:13,40(4), 2:26,69
6. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA), 1:13,18(5), 1:13,68(10), 2:26,86
7. Thomas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:13,25(6), 1:13,64(9), 2:26,89
8. Thomas KAMMERLANDER (AUT), 1:13,36(8), 1:13,54(6), 2:26,90
9. Gernot SCHWAB (AUT), 2:27,29
10. Rudi RESCH (ITA), 2:27,40
11. Michael SCHEIKL (AUT), 2:28,14
12. Ziga PAGON (SLO), 2:28,53
17. Kaj JOHNSON (CAN), 2:29,66
21. John GIBSON (CAN), 2:30,88

Doubles:
1. Pawel PORSCHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:17,10(1), 1:17,62(2), 2:34,72
2. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:17,66(3), 2:35,02
3. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:17,62(2), 1:17,95(4), 2:35,57
4. Thomas WEISS/Andreas LEITER (ITA), 1:18,30(7), 1.17,62(2), 2:35,92
5. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:18,18(6), 1:17,98(5), 2:36,16
6. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:18,17(5), 1:18,15(7), 2:36,32
7. Thomas KAMMERLANDER/Christoph REGENSBURGER (AUT), 2:36,43
8. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 2:36,70

2009 Natural Track World Cup #1 St. Sebastian, Austria

Prior to heading over to Europe for the start of the 2009 World Cup season, the Canadian team found themselves in the enviable situation of training domestically. It had been a few years since the team last had the privilege of having a track in Canada to train on before the beginning of the season. Normally the Canadian athletes have to travel to Europe early to work in just a few days of practice before starting the competition season. This year however the track in Grande Prairie was up and iced in mid December which provided the team with two weeks of solid training.

The competitive season began with a World Cup race in St. Sebastian, Austria. Only one Canadian athlete, Kaj Johnson, was able to be in Europe in time to compete in this race. This was Kaj's first time seeing this particular track and he was impressed with it's technical design. Luckily, he was able to land a couple training runs to get accustomed to the new track before the weekend of the race.

After sliding the track a few time through training, Kaj had a few concerns regarding the last chicane before the finish. It was a very fast section and he figured it would be a location of focus for many athletes during the race.

The race began well for Kaj and he posted a time fast enough to leave him sitting in 15th position after the first run. However, as he had suspected the final chicane presented some minor problems for him and many other athletes on the second run and he unfortunately fell behind one place to finish the race at 16th in the final standings. Regardless, this was Kaj’s best World Cup finish to date.