Austrian duo Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl successful on home ice in Innsbruck at Luge World Cup
BySportsbeat
Updated 13/01/2024 at 20:51 GMT
The Austrian pair claimed European Championship glory and moved into the overall World Cup lead. Steu and Kindl produced the fastest time on both runs to beat out Latvia's Martins Bots and Roberts Plume by 0.172 seconds and earn themselves the title of European champions. Germany's three-time Olympic champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt finished third.
Thomas Steu
Image credit: Getty Images
Austrian duo Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl claimed their first FIL Luge World Cup victory of the season with doubles victory on home ice in Innsbruck.
Steu and Kindl produced the fastest time on both runs to beat out Latvia's Martins Bots and Roberts Plume by 0.172 seconds and earn themselves the title of European champions.
Germany's three-time Olympic champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt recovered from fifth in the first run to finish third in Austria.
In the women's doubles, Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal continued their dominance with a third win in a row.
After posting only the third-fastest time in the first run, the German duo roared back in the second run to claim the victory by just 0.014 seconds from Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer of Italy.
The USA's Chevonne Chelsea Forgan and Sophia Kirkby moved up from sixth to third to complete the World Cup podium after the leaders at the halfway stage, Selina Egle and Lara Michaela Kipp, slipped to ninth after a disastrous finish to their second run.
Taking bronze in the European Championships were Marta Robezniece and Kitija Bogdanova of Latvia.
Degenhardt and Rosenthal are now 40 points clear of Voetter in the overall standings with 410 points from the first five races.
In the women's singles, Madeleine Egle narrowed the gap on overall leader Julia Taubitz with victory in front of a home crowd.
The Austrian recorded back-to-back World Cup triumphs with a 0.024-second win over Taubitz as her Germany teammate Anna Berreiter completed the podium.
Taubitz still leads the overall World Cup having failed to finish outside of the top two so far this season but her lead has been cut back to 40 points as the World Cup nears the halfway stage.
- - -
Stream the 2023-24 winter sports season on Eurosport and discovery+
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement