Olympic luge champion Felix Loch has won the overall World Cup for the sixth time. The 28-year-old from Berchtesgaden was enough to win the big crystal ball again in the non-Olympic sprint race at the final World Cup weekend in Sigulda, Latvia, with a third place behind the Russian Roman Repilov and the Slovakian Jozef Ninis.
Loch scored 923 points in the final score. The Austrian World Champion Wolfgang Kindl (838) and Repilow (774) finished second and third. Since 2012, Loch had only had to give way to Repilow last winter. Record winners are still Markus Prock (Austria) and Armin Zoeggeler (Italy) with ten overall victories each.
The world champions Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken celebrated two weeks before the Olympic Winter Games (9. till 25. February) also successfully completed the World Cup. The duo from Thuringia (Ilsenburg/Suhl) won the sprint and won ten out of 13 World Cup races this season. Eggert/Benecken had already made their victory in the overall World Cup perfect with a success in the “real” World Cup on Saturday.
Natalie Geisenberger (Miesbach) missed the success by only five thousandths of a second. As on Saturday, the Olympic champion only had to admit defeat to the controversial Tatyana Ivanova because of the Russian doping scandal. Dajana Eitberger (Ilmenau) finished fourth, Julia Taubitz (Oberwiesenthal) only finished twelfth. In the men’s race, Johannes Ludwig (Oberhof) and Ralf Palik (Oberwiesenthal) finished fifth and sixth.
The Bavarian Olympic gold medallist Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt (Berchtesgaden/Königssee) came third on Saturday in the sprint to a disappointing eleventh place. Andris Sics/Juris Sics and Oskar Gudramovics/Peteris Kalnins from Latvia completed the final double-seater World Cup podium.
After the sprint races, the Olympic team relay (13.50 o’ clock) forms the finale.