Defending champion Loch in pole position at half way stage

BySportsbeat

Published 08/02/2014 at 20:28 GMT

Germany's Felix Loch is well placed to defend his Olympic luge title, leading his closest rival by 0.29seconds at the half-way stage of the competition.

Eurosport

Image credit: Eurosport

The competition got underway at the Sanki Sliding Centre on Saturday and it was the home crowd who had plenty to cheer about after the first round of runs, mainly due to Albert Demchenko.

The 42-year-old Russian broke the track record on his first run with a time of 52.170seconds to top the standings, 0.0015secs ahead of Loch.

But the German stepped it up in the second heat, posting a time of 51.964secs � the only competitor to dip under the 52-second mark � to finish with an overall score of 1:44.149minutes.

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He said: "My first run wasn't that good, I made little mistakes, but the second was almost flawless.

"I'm very happy about the time and the speed, I was going almost 134km (83mph). That�s pretty fast."

Italy's five-time Olympic medallist and winner of the bronze in Vancouver 2010, Armin Zoeggeler, lies third going into Sunday's culmination of the event, 0.744secs behind Loch.

� Sportsbeat 2014

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