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
Kaj's performance earned him 21 World Cup points but that still dropped him two places in the over all standings, from 13th to 15th. 
Greg earned 12 World Cup points to maintain his 35th place position. 
In just their second event of the year Kaj and Greg earned 36 World Cup points to maintain their 12th place position in the doubles standings. 
