Langenhan Cruises to First World Champs Gold

From Altenberg, GER

(January 27, 2024) – The racing in Altenberg thus far in the 52nd FIL World Championships had been close in every race, with lots of athletes moving up and down the leaderboard.

That was until Max Langenhan took to the ice in his second run and ran away with a gold medal in the men’s singles race.

Langenhan was the leader by only .023 over the previous day’s sprint world champion David Gleirscher, and while the two were a bit ahead of everyone else, the stack of sliders behind third place Dominik Fischnaller was sizeable.

But in the second heat things went sideways for a number of sliders, both literally and figuratively. First Kaspar Rinks crashed from the eighth position and fell to the bottom of the second heat leaderboard. After some great slides by Australia’s Alex Ferlazzo and USA’s Tucker West, Felix Loch threw down a run everyone expected out of him to take the lead, but was overtaken by Nico Gleirscher, who took over from fourth.

The top three from the first heat were the last to go. First it was Dominik Fischnaller, and the Italian had a big issue where so many had previously, going over and eventually finishing just ahead of Rinks.

Up next was David Gleirscher, and the Austrian looked to be on his way to a medal until more trouble out of Curve 9 and into Kreisel dropped him down the leaderboard, eventually to seventh.

Finally it was Max Langenhan’s turn. Since returning from injury, Langenhan had won all but four races, two of which were in the 2023 World Championships and one other was the previous day’s sprint.

Langenhan had a few wall hits in his first run, but had none of those troubles in his second run. The trip down the track in Altenberg was nearly flawless, and Langenhan’s second run was enough to give him a comical .761 second victory over Nico Gleirscher, with Loch in third.

The championship was Langenhan’s first senior title.

Tucker West gave the United States its fourth fourth place finish of the championships after two fourth place finishes in the Sprint World Championships and a bronze medal in women’s doubles earlier in the day.

Alex Ferlazzo scored the best ever finish for Australia in an FIL World Championships with a fifth place finish, while the defending world champion Jonas Müller finished sixth.

The race marked the first time all weekend Latvia did not have an athlete on the podium. Earlier in the day the team of Upite and Kaluma took silver, and in the sprint on Friday every event saw a Latvian on the podium.

Jonny Gustafson continued the United States’ great championships with a ninth place finish, putting two athletes in the top ten, while Hunter Harris finished 27th in his first world championship event.

Results: