Austria Edges Germany in Team Relay

From Altenberg, GER

(February 5, 2023) – Austria edged Germany in Altenberg for their first gold medal of the Team Relay season.

Austria was the fourth team off in the relay and they slid to a 2.4 second advantage over Romania. AFter that China, Poland, the United States and Italy came down with no team able to get within two tenths of the Austrians.

Germany started their run from the ninth starting spot and fell behind early as Julia Taubitz was unable to keep up with the first run time of Madeleine Egle. Max Langenhan couldn’t keep pace with Wolfgang Kindl’s time either. Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken put down a strong slide that closed the gap between Germany and Austria, but ran out of track as the Germans fell behind by just under a tenth of a second.

Latvia, the last team down, had a strong run by Martins Bots and Roberts Plume, but was only good enough for third, as Austria won their first gold medal of the relay season.

Italy finished fourth, ahead of the United States and Romania.

With two relays to go in the World Cup season, Germany and Latvia are currently tied, with Italy and the United States in third and fourth.

Results: