Germany Wins Relay World Championship

From Altenberg, GER

(January 28, 2024) – Germany won some medals over the course of the World Championships in Altenberg, but really expected a little more during the weekend. They entered the Team Relay World Championship with six medals, tied with Lativa and behind Austria for total medals.

But no matter how rough a weekend is going, there’s always the team relay, where Germany had won eight of nine titles that had been passed out.

Early on it was China with an impressive set of runs. Where the other early starting teams all had problems, China was clean if not fast and held off Ukraine, Romania, and Poland before being unseated by Italy.

The United States took over from Italy as the battle for the medals began, with a great run by Summer Britcher the difference between the two nations. Latvia went next and it seemed as though Latvia was going to take over, but Anda Upite and Zane Kaluma couldn’t match the form they’d shown all weekend as Latvia fell behind by just .048.

Germany was next, and certaintly didn’t have a flawless set of runs. Julia Taubtiz had a bit of a skiddy effort, Tobias Wendl and Tobias Alrlt held firm, then Max Langenhan opened the lead on the Americans, and Dajana Eitberger and Saskia Schirmer finished out the run to take the lead with just Austria to go.

The Austrians had been the class of the field throughout the FIL World Championships and fully expected to find themselves on the podium. However, they fell behind early as women’s gold medalist Lisa Schulte had trouble up the final two curves to put Austria behind early. The issues continued with Juri Gatt and Ricardo Schöpf having similar problems out of the final two curves. Nico Gleirscher kept the Austrians in contention for at least a podium finish, but the nearly always consistent Selina Egle and Lara Kipp ran into trouble early and by the time the final paddle was hit Austria found themselves in sixth, with Germany taking gold.

Germany’s win was their ninth in ten FIL World Championship team relays.

The United States took silver, their best medal of the world championship weekend, while Latvia finished out a very successful weekend with a bronze.

Italy took fourth, while China had a best ever finish in fifth.

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