Canadians Devin Wardrope and Cole Zajanski Double Up in 15th at Luge World Championships
ALTENBERG, Ger.—Canada’s Devin Wardrope and Cole Zajanski had one of their strongest results of the season, sliding to 15th place in men’s doubles at the Luge World Championships in Altenberg, Germany on Saturday.
The Calgary-based sliders had two consistent runs down the 15-corner track, clocking a two-run time of 1:24.521.
“We had some troubles at the start on the first run, and that really hurt our speed down the track,” said Wardrope, the top slider on the sled. “We didn’t put any expectations on ourselves going into the race, and just wanted to execute the skills we learned and trained. Overall, we made a step towards that today.”
The Austrians took the top two spots on the podium. Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schoepf were crowned World Champions after stopping the clock at 1:22.924. Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl were next best at 1:22.970. Germany’s legendary duo of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt placed third with a time of 1:23.279.
The Canadian duo were looking to feed off good memories on the tricky 1,220-metre Altenberg track to turn their season around.
“Altenberg holds a special place in our hearts. It’s the track Cole and I slid our first World Cup together on and one that we generally feel comfortable on,” said Wardrope, who added they have twice finished 13th in Altenberg including during their World Cup debut.
“We made some progress on the sled and gained some comfort in our sliding, but we still have a long way to go over the next few years to continually get better,” added Zajanski. “Things went about how we expected today, which is good and bad because we know where we stack up but we are still not where we want to be.”
Calgary’s Dylan Morse was the lone Canadian in the men’s singles race. Competing in his second World Championships at the elite level, the 20-year-old did not advance to the second run with the top-20, placing 26th.
Germany’s Max Langenhan won the men’s singles World Championship title with a time of 1:47.813.
Three Canadians – Trinity Ellis, Caitlin Nash, Embyr-Lee Susko – will compete in the women’s singles race on Sunday
Complete Results from the Luge World Championships:
The Canadian Luge Association is a not-for-profit organization responsible for governing the sport of luge across the country. With the financial backing of from the Government of Canada, Canadian Olympic Committee and Own the Podium, the Canadian Luge Association safely recruits and develops the nation’s current and future high-performance luge athletes with the goal of regularly climbing onto the international podium. For more information on the Canadian Luge Association, please visit us at www.luge.ca on the Internet.