Linger brothers take Gold
ByReuters
Published 15/02/2006 at 18:21 GMT
Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger won the gold medal in the Olympic luge doubles on Wednesday. Andre Florschuetz and Torsten Wustlich of Germany won silver while Gerhard Plankensteiner and Oswald Haselrieder thrilled the home crowd by gaining two spots to take the bronze for Italy.
2006 Torino Luge Andreas/Wolfgang Linger
Image credit: Reuters
The victory was particularly sweet to the younger Linger, Wolfgang, who fractured his left ankle and fibula in a crash here last year in a training run for an Olympic warm-up event that was eventually canceled.
The controversial Olympic track claimed prominent victims when Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin of the United States, the silver medallists from the previous Winter Games in Salt Lake City, crashed on the first run. Neither of them appeared to have sustained any serious injury.
The fastest time in the opening run and the second-best mark in the final one gave the Linger brothers, world champions in 2003, a combined winning time of one minute 34.497 seconds.
Florschuetz and Wustlich, who had emerged as contenders after winning two of the final three races of this season's World Cup, finished 0.310 back.
Plankensteiner and Haselrieder ended 0.433 second off the pace to celebrate their first medal from a major event.
Pre-competition favourites Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch struggled on both runs and had to be content with sixth place.
The German pair are the only Olympic luge champions from Salt Lake City not to have retained their title at the Turin Games. Italy's Armin Zoeggeler and Germany's Sylke Otto had previously defended their crowns in the singles events.
Luge now makes way for skeleton with the women's singles on Thursday followed by the men's singles on Friday.
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