From Altenberg, GER
(February 4, 2024) – The FIL World Cup tour has been in Altenberg for three weeks, and throughout those weeks there’s been everything from snow to rain to wind, surprise medals, come from behind medals, just everything.
So of course the final race of the weekend had to have something a little crazy.
Romania was the first team off the top in the relay, and the team of Corina Buzatoiu, Tudor-Stefan Handaric & Sebastian Motzca, Valentin Cretu, and Raluca Stramaturaru & Mihaela-Carmen Manolescu put down four very clean runs to set the pace early.
After China struggled to get down clean, Latvia was next and Elina Vitola, Martins Bots & Roberts Plume, Kristers Aparjods, and Anda Upite & Kitija Bogdanova slid to the lead by just under two seconds despite a hiccup on Vitola’s run.
And then the wheels started to fall off for most everyone else.
The Italian team nearly all had some issue with their runs and fell in behind Romania. Ukraine struggled on their runs, and then it was the Americans’ turn.
Emily Sweeney, Dana Kellogg & Frank Ike, Tucker West, and Chevonne Forgan & Sophie Kirkby slid to second place with relatively clean runs and good reaction times.
The Austrians were next, and as a team struggled to put together four clean runs. The team of Gatt and Schöpf hit the wall out of Curve 9 and the team never could recover as they finished nearly a second behind Romania.
That left just Germany, on their home track where they’d just won the relay world championship gold medal a week prior. Early on Julia Taubitz had a pretty clean run but the speed wasn’t there as the track was deteriorating due to warmer temperatures and rain. But Wendl and Arlt were a little sloppy, then Max Langenhan had an uncharacteristically bumpy run to set Germany back, and no matter what Eitberger and Schirmer did the gap was too big to make up.
The end result was Germany sliding into fifth behind Austria, handing Latvia their sixth Team Relay gold medal. The United States won their first silver medal of the World Cup relay season, a week after winning silver in the World Championships.
And Romania won bronze, their very first ever relay medal.
“This is a dream come true! We’ve always wished for this,” Valentin Cretu told FIL’s Kate Hansen after the race. “”We’ve fought for this, and we finally got it! The weather helped for sure, but we all had clean runs and it’s a wonderful day for us!”
The final results saw Latvia win gold, USA silver, Romania gold, with Austria, Germany, and Italy rounding out the top six. China and Ukraine were seventh and eighth.
With two relay events to go in the FIL World Cup season, Germany leads Austria by ten points. he United States sits third, with Latvia in fourth. Ukraine, Italy, Romania, Poland, China, and Canada round out the standings.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Women | M-Doubles | Men | W-Doubles |
| 1 | Vitola / Bots & Plume / Aparjods / Upite & Bogdanova | LAT | 3 | 47.647 | 1:36.209 | 2:24.680 | 3:14.445 |
| 2 | Sweeney / Kellogg & Ike / West / Forgan & Kirkby | USA | 6 | 47.458 | 1:36.920 | 2:25.449 | 3:15.448 |
| 3 | Buzatoiu / Handaric & Motzca / Cretu / Stramaturaru & Manolescu | ROU | 1 | 47.633 | 1:37.037 | 2:25.937 | 3:16.301 |
| 4 | Schulte / Gatt & Schöpf / D. Gleirscher / Egle & Kipp | AUT | 7 | 47.699 | 1:37.290 | 2:27.022 | 3:16.724 |
| 5 | Taubitz / Wendl & Arlt / Langenhan / Eitberger & Schirmer | GER | 8 | 47.578 | 1:37.223 | 2:26.789 | 3:16.795 |
| 6 | Zöggeler / Nagler & Malleier / Fischnaller / Vötter & Oberhofer | ITA | 4 | 49.620 | 1:38.519 | 2:27.284 | 3:16.927 |
| 7 | Hu / Jubayi & Hou / Bao / Gulijienaiti & Zhao | CHN | 2 | 47.524 | 1:36.981 | 2:26.853 | 3:17.661 |
| 8 | Shkret / Hoi & Kachmar / Dukach / Stetskiv & Mokh | UKR | 5 | 49.515 | 1:39.872 | 2:28.717 | 3:19.406 |
