Overall World Cup winner Johannes Ludwig (Oberhof) expects a tight medal race after the first training session of the lugers in the Olympic ice track in China.
“It will be difficult to stand out,” Ludwig told “SID” on Wednesday evening in Yanqing and added: “It’s more about the little things than it was in the World Cup in November. I didn’t quite expect that.”
The track, added the Olympic bronze medalist from Pyeongchang, is in “very good” condition. “The ice is definitely very hard, you hardly notice a bump. Let’s see how it is when the bobsleigh pilots raced over it.”
The 35-year-old also expressed the hope that driving the four races on Saturday and Sunday would not be “too easy. The spectators should also see a difference.”
In the upper section of the imposing Yanqing National Sliding Center, which was built especially for the Winter Games in Beijing in the Xiaohaituo Mountains north-west of Beijing, the subtleties of driving are crucial. In the lower section, a “really rough buck” could cost a lot of time. “Curve 13 can be an executioner,” suspects Ludwig.
The man from Oberhof, who won the overall World Cup for the first time in his career this winter with five wins this season, set the best time of the three German lugers in the first training session.
In addition to Ludwig, record world champions Felix Loch (Berchtesgaden) and Max Langenhan (Friedrichroda) will represent the German colors in the men’s singles.