At the home World Championships in tobogganing, medals are the goal. The doubles win gold in Oberhof.
At the Luge World Championships in Oberhof, the German doubles didn’t give the competition a chance.
Toni Eggert (BRC Ilsenburg) and Sascha Beneken (RT Suhl) drove to gold on their home track, Jessica Degenhardt (RRC Altenberg) and Cheyenne Rosenthal (BSC Winterberg) even managed to do so with a track record. Both doubles had already triumphed in the sprint competitions on Friday. The Olympic champions Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt (RC Berchtesgaden/WSV Königssee) completed the strong result with silver.
“It’s a huge burden now, because the training was pretty difficult. We knew we only had a chance if we performed perfectly there twice,” said Eggert, who drove with partner Beneken to the fifth world title in a row. “It’s so nice, after two winters without spectators, to have a World Cup at home and to be able to celebrate with so many people,” summarized Beneken. The triumph in his own state is “the fulfillment of a childhood dream”.
Wendl/Arlt with a blunder
Behind Eggert/Beneken (1:23.517 minutes) and Wendl/Arlt (+0.171 seconds), the Austrians Yannick Müller/Armin Frauscher (+0.192) finished in bronze. Wendl/Arlt had lost their title chance in the first round when the duo from Bavaria made a surprising driving mistake.
“The track has it all, you could see that many top teams wobbled,” said Eggert. “We also had a mistake in the second run in the lower part. We compensated for that with a lot of experience and didn’t make it a big problem.”
Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal set a track record in both rounds. Her total time of 1:17.619 minutes was enough to win the world title. The Austrians Selina Egle/Lara Kipp (+0.126) came in second ahead of Andrea Vötter/Marion Oberhofer from Italy (+0.187).
Record drive in the second round
“You can’t compare last year’s World Cup title with this one at all,” said Degenhardt, who also triumphed with her partner at the World Cup premiere in women’s doubles in 2022 – due to the corona, however, without an audience. “There’s always a great atmosphere in Oberhof, there’s always a lot of people coming to the track,” said Rosenthal.
“We tried to put everything into it again in the second run, there were also small things where I thought: Okay, now you have to stretch yourself again,” Degenhardt explained the record run in the second round.
Source: Stern
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