From Umhausen, AUT
(January 21, 2024) – The FIL World Cup on Natural Track ran it’s (usually) annual Eliminator race, a bracket-racing style event where each athlete goes and the faster time of the two proceeds to the next round. The final round is a race between the four final athletes. Below are the results from that action.
Doubles Luge
The doubles event was held on Saturday, and with only five teams in the event, there was only one team eliminated prior to the final round.
The fourth ranked Italian Tobias Paur and Andreas Hofer beat Germany’s Bine Mekina and Simon Deitz to go into the final four to race Peter and Dominik Neupauer, Matthias and Peter Lambacher, and the team of Maxmilian Pichler and Nico Edlinger.
In the final four slides, Pichler and Edlinger gave Austria it’s first win of the weekend on its home soil as they beat out Paur and Hofer by .87.
Lambacher and Lambacher, previously undefeated coming into the season, finished third, with Neupauer and Neupauer in fourth.
Results:
Top 4:
1. Pichler / Edlinger (AUT) – 1:18.07
2. Paur / Hofer (ITA) – 1:18.94
3. Lambacher / Lambacher (ITA) – 1:19.06
4. Neupauer / Neupauer (SVK) – 1:23.35
Second 1:
5. Mekina / Dietz (GER) – 1:21.86
Women’s Luge
There was little surprise about who took gold in the women’s eliminator event on Sunday. Italy’s Evelin Lanthaler, winner of 24 straight events took her 25th gold medal with a commanding victory in the bracket race.
Lanthaler had a bye in the first round, and beat Croatia’s Patricija Urbanc in the semifinals to get to the four-slider final where she faced off against Germany’s Lisa Walch, Austria’s Riccarda Ruetz, and Italy’s Jenny Castiglioni.
In the final set of runs Lanthaler once again was over a full second ahead of anyone else to secure gold. As in the previous day’s singles race, Ruetz took silver on her home soil.
Lisa Walch, a medal contender all season, took bronze for the first time this season, while Castiglioni finished fourth.
American Katie Cookman advanced to the semifinals after Italy’s Daniela Mittermair failed to finish her heat and finished the event in seventh place. In other semifinal races Ruetz edged out Sarah Schiller by just .11, while Walch beat Tina Unterberger by .09.
Results:
Top 4:
1. Evelin Lanthaler (ITA) – 1:12.82
2. Riccarda Ruetz (AUT) – 1:14.58
3. Lisa Walch (GER) – 1:14.68
4. Jenny Castiglioni (ITA) – 1:16.30
Second 4:
5. Tina Untergerger (AUT) – 1:14.51
6. Sarah Schiller (GER) – 1:15.12
7. Katie Cookman (USA) – 1:19.45
8. Patricija Urbanc (CR) – 1:19.57
Men’s Luge
As in the women’s race, the men’s race saw a repeat winner from the day before, as Patrick Pigneter slid to victory as part of an Italian sweep of the podium.
Pigneter received a bye in the first round, but then beat Swiss slider Jerome Almer and Austria’s Miguel Brugger on his way to the finals. In that final he edged out longtime doubles teammate Florian Clara to win gold by .26.
Italian Fabian Brunner helped complete the Italian sweep of the podium with a bronze medal run, only .07 behind Clara, while Austria’s Michael Scheikl was the odd man out with a fourth place finish, only a tenth out of the medals.
Italy’s Daniel Gruber was the top non-finalist after beating Gabriel Halcin of Slovakia in the quarter finals.
The United States’ men had some mixed results in the Eliminator event. Torrey Cookman was the top American in the round of 28 and was credited with a 17th place finish. Mason Palecek and Leonard Pizziola finished 21st and 22nd, respectively.
Results:
Top 4:
1. Patrick Pigneter (ITA) – 1:12.76
2. Florian Clara (ITA) – 1:13.02
3. Fabian Brunner (ITA) – 1:13.09
4. Michael Scheikl (AUT) – 1:13.19
Second 4:
5. Daniel Gruber (ITA) – 1:12.90
6. Ziga Kralj (SLO) – 1:13.45
7. Stefan Federer (SUI) – 1:13.63
8. Miguel Brugger (AUT) – 1:13.71