Canadians Turn in Strong Performances at the Third Viessmann World Cup Results
The 150th Viessmann Luge World Cup in the history of the International Luge Federation, and the third of the 2001-2002 season, was held this weekend.Both Canada's doubles teams turned in solid performances with Chris Moffat and Eric Pothier placing 7th, only 0.903 seconds off the gold medal pace set by two-time World Champions and current World Cup leaders, Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch, of Germany. Moffat and Pothier now stand 7th in the overall 2001-2002 Viessmann World Cup Championship. Calgary's Grant Albrecht and Mike Moffat finished 11th with a time of 1:33.078.
"The track today was much faster than it had been in training and we ran into a couple of small problems on the first run. We did finish with a good second run though, so it wasn't a bad day," said Mike Moffat.
"Both runs were actually quite good although they weren't as fast as we would have liked, but considering how we were doing in training this last week, it was a pretty good race over all," added partner Grant Albrecht.
"Our first run was the best we've had so far here and we were pretty pleased with how things went," stated Airdrie's Eric Pothier. "But in our second run we had problems and fell back to 7th. Last year we would have been happy to be 7th and this year it's a disappointment so it just shows the direction we're heading in."
"Today's weather was a tremendous improvement over the rain and snow we had been having over the past week, so we were very pleased with conditions, which had been a real problem during training," added Pothier's partner, Chris Moffat.
The track at Koenigssee proved a formidable challenge for Canada's men. Calgary's Tyler Seitz finished 15th with a time of 1:37.804 and is now in 11th place in the over 2001-2001 Viessmann World Cup standings. Team mates Chris Moffat and Jeff Christie finished 22nd (1:38.237) and 30th (1:39.938) respectively. Kyle Connelly did not finish his run.
The gold medal went to Germany's three-time Olympic Champion Georg Hackl, who won his second Viessmann Luge World in a row in time of 1:35.931.
German Olympic champion Silke Kraushaar delighted the home crowd, winning the women's event in 1:32.053. Regan Lauscher of Calgary finished 16th with a time of 1:35.023. "My first run was a good reminder for me as to what can happen when I'm not completely relaxed. I hit the walls and skidded around because I tensed up," said Lauscher. "In my 2nd run though, I regained my focus and put down a clean, fast run."
Source: Jennifer Pashniak, CLA
Tim Farstad, CLA-OLTC, 403-247-9884 ortfarstad@coda.ab.ca