Men's Events Open the Third Junior World Cup
Canada's National Junior Luge team launched the winter race program with this weekend's Third Junior World Cup.In the Junior I Men's event, Calgary's Winston Davis delivered the top Canadian performance. Davis finished 10th, 2.259 seconds off the winning time.
"I was pleased with my start times but my driving skills were really not sharp today," said Davis. "On one run, I hit the wall coming out of curve #9, and the race was essentially over after that."
Davis' team-mate and doubles partner, Marshall Savill finished 23rd.
"The final result was disappointing because I had my personal best-ever time in the first heat," said the sixteen-year old Calgary athlete. "But I missed the start in the second heat and that was pretty much the race."
Germany's Robert Eschrich captured the gold medal with a time of 1:27.444. Daniel Pfister of Austria took silver and Thomas Coburger, also of Germany, took bronze.
In the Junior II Men's event, Calgary's Sam Edney delivered Canada's best result with a fifteenth-place finish. Current Canadian junior champion, Jorgen Krause, finished eighteenth; he was followed closely by Vancouver native, Jeff Christie, in twentieth place. Calgary's Ian Cockerline was in eleventh place at the end of the first heat, but a near crash in the second heat dropped him down into the twenty-eighth spot.
Germany dominated the Junior II Men's event, capturing four of the top five places. Patric Shurer captured gold in a time of 1:47.819. Countrymen Denis Bertz and Nico Oetze
joined him on the podium.
"In general, the boys were very fast at the start, but they couldn't seem to maintain their speed in the bottom half of the track," said coach André Benoît. "Race conditions were virtually identical to those we had in training, so that certainly was not at issue this morning. I think that the older boys (Junior II) just didn't live up to their potential," he concluded.
Source: Jennifer Pashniak, CLA
Information: Tim Farstad, CLA-OLTC, (403) 616-1397 or tfarstad@coda.ab.ca