Langenhan Rallies to Win Sigulda Gold

From Sigulda, LAT

(January 14, 2023) – The sliding track in Sigulda could not have been any different for the men than it had been a week ago. For the first weekend of competition it was hard, fast, and held up. For the second weekend of competition, it was warm in Sigulda, and with that the track didn’t seem as though it would hold throughout the race.

So the question was who could take advantage of optimal ice conditions at the right time to win in Sigulda? And the answer was Germany’s Max Langenhan.

Langenhan, making his second start of the season, put down a pretty decent run on his first effort that left him 12th at the halfway point of the race. His second run came just as the Latvian ice was starting to give way and the combination of a great slide plus okay ice gave him the fastest downtime of the competition.

Langenhan then watched as slider after slider tried their best to match his time, with teammate Felix Loch the only slider to get within .2 of it. By the time Nico Gleirscher, the first heat leader, came down the track was done. Gleirscher put down a very clean run that was only 12th quickest and fell to fourth to give Langenhan the win.

Langenhan’s win, while possibly ice-assisted, was definitely not a fluke by any stretch of the imagination. The German’s now got two medals in his first two races of the season and has shown every bit of form of a medal contender in both races.

Finishing behind Langenhan was Loch, who came into the second heat in ninth place and put down the second quickest run of the competition to catapult up the finishing order. His silver was his fourth medal in the past five races.

Latvia’s Kristers Aparjods, the track record holder and gold medalist a week ago, finished third. He entered the second run in second place and had the penultimate run in the second heat. Despite that he still set the seventh quickest run in that second heat to hang onto bronze.

Gleirscher finished fourth, while Italy’s Dominik Fischnaller finished fifth. Latvia’s Gints Berzins rounded out the top six.

USA’s Tucker West was the last slider to go in the first heat and his downtime suffered because of it. His second run nearly mirrored his first, but his downtime was .7 quicker and enough to shoot him up the finishing order from 16th to ninth. Teammate Jonny Gustafson struggled in Sigulda and finished 21st.

With five races to go in the FIL World Cup season, Dominik Fischnaller holds a 94 point lead over Felix Loch, who has one DNS to his name. Kristers Aparjods sits third overall, three points ahead of Wolfgang Kindl. David and Nico Gleirscher round out the top six, with Tucker West in seventh.

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