The five-time luge world champion Julia Taubitz (Oberwiesenthal) has won the overall women’s World Cup for the fourth time.
In the third-to-last race of the season in Sigulda, Latvia, the 27-year-old’s third place in the victory of Olympic silver medalist Anna Berreiter was enough to make an early decision in the fight for the big crystal ball. Before the sprint on Sunday and the finale on the first weekend in March at the same location, Taubitz can no longer be pushed out of the lead.
On the way to their third overall World Cup victory in a row, last year’s winners moved up from fourth place to third place in the second run on the artificial ice rink in Sigulda, which is feared by many athletes. In the final tally, she was 0.081 seconds behind Berreiter.
With an almost perfect drive, Berreiter even shot from seventh position to her first win of the season and onto the winner’s podium because all of the competitors who were initially placed ahead of her made mistakes in the decisive run. At the finish, Berreiter was 0.018 seconds ahead of the second-placed local hero Elina Ieva Vitola.
With the victory in Sigulda, Berreiter moved up to second place in the overall standings. Before the last two competitions, the 24-year-old is level with the Austrian Madeleine Egle, who disappointed Latvia in 14th position and had to bury all chances of winning the overall World Cup for the first time. Taubitz leads with 895 points with a cushion of 223 points over her two pursuers.
With her early triumph, Taubitz continued the impressive series of successes among German female luge athletes. Since 1999, only athletes from Germany have won the overall World Cup. The last female luger outside of the German team to date was the Italian Gerda Weißensteiner, 26 years ago.