Langenhan Comes from 21st to Win Altenberg Gold

From Altenberg, GER

(February 3, 2024) – Max Langenhan has won in seemingly every way possible over the last calendar year, leading outright in both heats, coming from behind, coming from off the podium altogether, and so on and so on.

But he found a new way to win in Altenberg, coming from 21st in the first heat to take gold.

The air temperature was warm, and the weather was drizzly, and that combination led to some slower conditions as the first heat went on. Those conditions plus a mistake out of Curve 9 for Langenhan set the German champion back to 21st after the first heat.

His second run was nearly flawless, and that coupled with much better ice due to his earlier start position gave him a downtime that was a second and a half quicker than his first and six tenths quicker than anything from the first heat.

From there Langenhan watched slider after slider try to match his combined downtime with no luck. Many sliders later in the heat had otherwise very clean looking slides with absolutely no real speed in it. Kristers Aparjods came closest to match that second downtime, but was .656 off the run pace.

Austria’s David Gleirscher was the final slider off the top in the second heat. A small skid didn’t help things, but Gleirscher may not have had a chance regardless of how good his slide was. He was in the lead throughout most of the splits, but his two-run downtime was .121 off of Langenhan’s pace, giving Langenhan the victory.

Langenhan’s gold medal was his fifth in six races this season. Gleirscher’s silver was his first medal of the season.

On the strength of his second quickest slide of the second heat Aparjods took his third bronze medal of the season, missing out on a silver in this race by .006.

Felix Loch entered the second heat in second place but fell to fourth in the second heat, while Italy’s Dominik Fischnaller finished fifth and Wolfgang Kindl sixth.

Tucker West had the two  strongest starts of the competition and a really clean second run to move up from 12th in the first heat to seventh to lead the American effort. Jonny Gustafson entered the second heat in fifth but some sloppy ice didn’t help things as he fell to 11th. Hunter Harris finished 18th to finish out the Americans’ race.

Italy had two sliders in the top ten, both of whom were outside of the top ten coming into the heat. Fischnaller sat 11th in the first heat before moving up to 5th, while Leon Felderer was 15th and moved up to tenth with the fifth best run oft the second heat.

After six events on the men’s luge World Cup calendar, Max Langenhan leads by 151 points over Jonas Müller. Nico Glerischer is third, with Krsiters Aparjods and Dominik Fischnaller rounding out the top five.

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