Silver Medal For Canada Luge Junior World Championships
The Canadian doubles luge team of Grant Albrecht (age 19) and Mike Moffat (age 18) took a detour from competition on the Senior World Cup circuit to win a silver medal at the Junior World Championships in Lillehammer, Norway."We drew the 15th start position today which put us at a disadvantage but still managed a silver medal for Canada,” reported Mike Moffat. “We were aiming to move up to gold after winning silver last year but were still pleased with finishing just six one hundredths of a second behind the US team."
USA’s Anderson and Wohleb won gold and Linger and Linger of Germany won bronze.
Although still in the ‘under age 20’ junior category, Albrecht and Moffat have already picked up two qualifying finishes competing on the senior circuit for the 2002 Winter Olympics They had a personal best sixth place finish at World Cup Five in Altenberg, Germany, last weekend.
After the Junior World Championships wrap up in Lillehammer, Albrecht and Moffat head direct to Nagano, Japan, to re-join the Canadian Senior National Team for World Cup Six.
In Women’s singles competition, Canadian’s Lindsay Danforth (age 16) and Meaghan Simister (age 14) finished 15th and 31st respectively in their first Junior World Championship. The USA swept the podium in women’s competition with Nicole Oliveira, Courtney Zablocki and Brenna Margol winning gold, silver and bronze.
"I’m happy with today’s results. I had a few problems in training runs earlier this week but I put together two decent runs today in my first World Championships," commented Danforth.
All Canadian athletes are from Calgary unlesss otherwise noted.