Thomas Steu/Lorenz Koller finished sixth in the doubles, 0.347 seconds behind the victorious Toni Eggert/Sascha Benecken. The Germans won their sixth overall World Cup victory in addition to EM gold. Steu/Koller finished sixth as the best Austrian team, but missed a few races. Yannick Müller/Armin Frauscher and Juri Gatt/Riccardo Schöpf finished twelfth and 13th in the daily classification. Gatt/Schöpf secured silver in the U23 European Championship classification.
After silver (Sigulda 2010) and bronze (Königssee 2017), Kindl was at the top of the podium for the first time at a European Championship in singles. The 33-year-old Tyrolean was already on course for a medal in third place after the first run and, in contrast to Ludwig and Dominik Fischnaller, who were in front of him – the South Tyrolean was only tenth after the half-time lead – did not make any mistakes.
Gleirscher justified his Olympic nomination with third place. After the first run, the 24-year-old was in seventh place, just behind his team-mate Jonas Müller, but thanks to a clean drive he moved up the field. Müller, on the other hand, who was not nominated for Beijing, made a blunder at the end of his run, ending his chances of a medal and ultimately finishing fifth. Reinhard Egger left the World Cup in 17th place (16th European Championship) in his last career race, Olympic champion David Gleirscher was 19th (17th European Championship).
In the doubles, Eggert/Benecken’s disqualification from the New Year’s race in Winterberg had only been lifted the day before for formal reasons, which meant they made up 16 points on Sics/Sics. The Balts only finished eighth in the first race. An improvement of three places in the final heat was not enough, as Eggert/Benecken held their lead at halftime. Steu/Koller finished sixth as the best Austrian team, but they missed a few races. It was enough for Gatt/Schöpf to take silver in the U23 European Championship standings behind Martins Bots and Roberts from Latvia.
Source: Nachrichten
