Gruber Wins First of the Year

From Passeiertal, ITA

(Jan. 14, 2018) Italy’s Alex Gruber helped lead a sweep of the FIL Natural Track events in Passeiertal, winning the third gold in as many events for Italy.

Gruber came into the second heat .11 behind Thomas Kammerlander of Austria. Needing a quick second run, Gruber set the fast time of the race to put the pressure on Kammerlander.

Kammerlander couldn’t answer, coming down .25 slower than Gruber in the second run, giving the gold medal to Gruber by .14.

The two were a full second ahead of Patrick Pigneter of Italy. The Paseiertal race was the third time in three events that Gruber, Kammerlander, and Pigneter swept the podium in some order or another.

Joshua Reeves and Dex Unwin finished 19th and 20th for Great Britain.

Results:

Pos	Name	Nation	Bib	Run 1	Run 2	Total
1	Alex Gruber	ITA	36	54.57	54.25	1:48.82
2	Thomas Kammerlander	AUT	38	54.46	54.50	1:48.96
3	Patrick Pigneter	ITA	37	55.05	54.91	1:49.96
4	Michael Scheikl	AUT	34	55.24	55.15	1:50.39
5	Gregori Bukin	RUS	28	55.03	55.42	1:50.45
6	Aleksandr Egorov	RUS	33	55.23	55.32	1:50.55
7	Stefan Federer	ITA	35	55.19	55.44	1:50.63
8	Florian Clara	ITA	25	55.49	55.40	1:50.89
9	Christian Schopf	AUT	32	55.67	55.71	1:51.38
10	Florian Glatzl	AUT	31	55.83	55.66	1:51.49
11	Aleksey Martyanov	RUS	22	55.71	55.91	1:51.62
12	Juri Talikh	RUS	23	55.95	55.91	1:51.86
13	Jack Leslie	NZL	26	56.95	56.90	1:53.85
14	Veselin Iliev	BIH	27	57.45	57.90	1:55.35
15	Christian Wichan	GER	24	57.91	57.53	1:55.44
16	Isa Guzeloglu	TUR	17	57.98	58.83	1:56.81
17	Myroslav / Lenko	UKR	21	59.02	58.99	1:58.01
18	Andriy Demchuk	UKR	18	58.98	59.11	1:58.09
19	Jjoshua Reeves	GBR	19	60.78	59.51	2:00.29
20	Dex Unwin	GBR	7	60.91	59.91	2:00.82
21	Patryk Budny	POL	15	59.97	61.08	2:01.05
22	Coskun Ercoskun	TUR	13	61.08	60.32	2:01.40
23	Ciprian Codrut Tazlaoanu	ROU	6	60.85	61.12	2:01.97
24	Andrii Hirniak	UKR	12	60.98	61.22	2:02.20
25	Rafal Zasuwa	POL	20	62.46	61.00	2:03.46
26	Filimon Adrian	ROU	1	61.74	61.95	2:03.69