Ivan Nagler and Fabian Malleier landed in fourth place with the Italian relay team. © Josef Plaickner

South Tyroleans came 4th in the relay

The World Cup weekend for artificial track luge in Whistler (Canada) continued on Saturday evening with the women's singles and relay. There was no podium finish for the South Tyroleans to celebrate.

17 December 2023

From: do

The first World Cup races for women's doubles took place last winter. On Saturday evening, these athletes were asked to take part in the team relay for the first time. This meant that four sleds per nation fought for top positions. For the boot state, Verena Hofer, the men's doubles Ivan Nagler/Fabian Malleier, Dominik Fischnelller and, for the first time, the women's doubles Andrea Vötter and Verena Oberhofer plunged into the ice channels in Whistler, Canada. In the end, however, the six South Tyroleans narrowly missed out on the podium and ended up in fourth place.

Italy started the race with start number 5, with Verena Hofer starting the race, who immediately made the clock light up green compared to the interim leader from Canada. As a result, all South Tyroleans made no major mistakes and thus sent a declaration of war to the nations still at the top. Ultimately, however, Germany, who took an outstanding victory, Austria (+0,550 seconds) and the USA (+0,646) were faster and the South Tyroleans had to settle for a thankless fourth place (+0,674).

German triple victory in singles

The women's singles took place beforehand. Germany celebrated a triple victory. Julia Taubitz confidently set the fastest time in the Whistler ice track, while Anna Berreiter (+0,111) and Merle Fräbel (+0,113) completed the German podium. Verena Hofer was the best South Tyrolean in 14th place (+0,403), Sandra Robatscher was 17th (+0,634) and Nina Zöggeler landed in 21st place (+0,780).