Pigneter Edges Scheikl in Kühtai Thriller

From Kühtai, AUT

(December 17, 2023) – The men’s natural track opener was one of the tightest races of any sliding sport race of the weekend, as Michael Scheikl and Patrick Pigneter raced to a near dead heat down the track in Austria.

L-R: Scheikl, Pigneter, Clara (Courtesy FIL instagram)

In the first heat Italy’s Pigneter took the lead over Austria’s Scheikl by just .05, with Italy’s Matthias Lambacher just over a quarter of a second back in third place.

The second heat saw Pigneter’s long-time doubles partner Florian Clara put down a big second run, the fastest of the heat, to take the lead from fifth and hold it after runs by both Lambacher and Switzerland’s Stefan Federer.

Scheikl broke into the lead with a downtime just .07 off the pace set by Clara, leaving himself between Pigneter and gold.

Pigneter’s second heat’s effort started quicker than his first, and over the first half of his second run he was well into the lead. However, a late skid set him back, but as he crossed the finish line he still had the lead, but just by .02.

Scheikl took silver, .44 ahead of Clara with bronze.

Lambacher, one half of the winning doubles team from Saturday, finished fourth, while Federer rounded out the top five.

The United States did not have any of their team entered. As is tradition, they will join the tour after the New Year.

Results:

Pos	Name	Nation	Bib	Start 1	Start 2	Run 1	Run 2	Total
1	Patrick Pigneter	ITA	28	6.30	6.28	54.44	54.81	1:49.25
2	Michael Scheikl	AUT	30	6.19	6.23	54.49	54.78	1:49.27
3	Florian Clara	ITA	29	6.34	6.33	55.00	54.71	1:49.71
4	Matthias Lambacher	ITA	8	6.32	6.37	54.72	55.14	1:49.86
5	Stefan Federer	SUI	23	6.24	6.29	54.80	55.16	1:49.96
6	Daniel Gruber	ITA	24	6.32	6.32	55.01	55.02	1:50.03
7	Florian Markt	AUT	27	6.30	6.30	55.01	55.14	1:50.15
8	Ziga Kralj	SLO	20	6.39	6.41	55.16	55.34	1:50.50
9	Sebastian Feldhammer	AUT	7	6.37	6.37	56.24	55.29	1:50.53
10	Miguel Brugger	AUT	22	6.34	6.41	55.35	55.91	1:51.26
11	Vid Kralj	SLO	21	6.33	6.31	56.51	55.62	1:52.13
12	Simon Dietz	GER	14	6.41	6.39	56.74	56.92	1:53.66
13	Jerome Almer	SUI	25	6.44	6.41	57.11	56.86	1:53.97
14	Bine Mekina	GER	3	6.48	6.44	57.43	57.12	1:54.55
15	Remi D’Avaiu de Dernay	FRA	12	6.52	6.49	58.05	57.31	1:55.36
16	Isa Guzeloglu	FIN	10	6.52	6.51	58.39	58.27	1:56.66
17	Marco Almer	SUI	4	6.95	6.87	58.64	58.29	1:56.93
18	Gabriel Halcin	SVK	15	6.40	6.44	59.53	58.28	1:57.81
19	Peter Neupauer	SVK	9	6.49	6.55	59.15	59.49	1:58.64
20	David Rydl	CZE	16	6.76	6.72	59.72	59.67	1:59.39
21	Semyeong Kim	KOR	13	6.56	6.58	61.01	60.01	2:01.02
22	Coskun Ercoskun	NOR	1	6.55	6.60	59.83	61.50	2:01.33
23	Tomas Hasek	CZE	6	6.86	6.86	61.58	61.54	2:03.12
24	Marian Budzak	SVK	2	6.62	6.65	63.64	64.05	2:07.69
25	Shohei Tanaka	SUI	18	6.84	6.90	64.58	63.25	2:07.83