Humphries sustains monobob lead
WINTERBERG, Germany — Kaillie Humphries of the U.S. remained in the World Cup monobob season points lead Saturday, after finishing second to Germany’s Laura Nolte in the first race of 2023.
Nolte got her second consecutive win, both times with Humphries finishing second. Humphries is the only woman who has medaled in all four monobob races this season, and she has an 845-810 lead over Nolte in the season standings.
Nolte trailed by 50 points entering Saturday. She finished two runs in 1 minute, 59.54 seconds. Humphries finished in 1:59.72, barely ahead of Germany’s Kim Kalicki and her time of 1:59.73.
In the two-man race, Germany’s Francesco Friedrich failed to medal for only the sixth time in his
last 86 major international races — and for only the fourth time in 22 starts at Winterberg in his career. Battling through injury, he teamed with Thorsten Margis to finish sixth.
Germany’s Johannes Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer
won in 1:51.17, with the Swiss sled of Michael Vogt and Sandro Michel second in 1:51.31. Britain’s Brad Hall and Taylor Lawrence were third in 1:51.44. There were no U.S. sleds in the race.
Luge:
Dajana Eitberger of Germany won the women’s luge World Cup race, and host Latvia swept the gold medals in the men’s and women’s doubles races. Eitberger got her second win of the season, in 1 minute, 22.999 seconds, about a hundredth of a second better than Latvia’s Elina Ieva Vitola (1:23.093). Germany’s Julia Taubitz was third in 1:23.143 and kept her lead in the World Cup season standings. Ashley Farquharson was the top U.S. finisher, placing 10th. Summer Britcher tied for 12th, Brittney Arndt was 14th and Emily Sweeney — fourth after the first heat — had trouble in the second run and finished 17th. USA Luge got its fifth World Cup luge medal of the season later, with the women’s doubles team of Chevonne Forgan and Sophie Kirkby winning silver. Latvia’s Anda Upite and Sanija Ozolina won the doubles race in 1:24.916. Forgan and Kirkby were second in 1:25.138 and Germany’s Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal were third in 1:25.261. Only six sleds finished in the race. In the men’s doubles race, Latvia’s Martins Bots and Roberts Plume had the best time in both heats and finished in 1:22.642. Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt were second in 1:22.798, while Italy’s Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner were third in 1:23.024. Zack DiGregorio and Sean Hollander were the top U.S. men’s doubles sled, placing eighth.
Men’s giant slalom: Marco Odermatt carried his remarkable streak in giant slalom to another World Cup win in his home nation’s classic race staged in unseasonably warm weather. Odermatt, the Olympic champion, protected his first-run lead in fading light and even extended it with the fastest second-leg time to finish 0.73 seconds ahead of Henrik Kristoffersen. Kristoffersen bowed in a show of respect when greeting Odermatt in the finish area and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Odermatt’s teammate Loïc Meillard was 1.66 seconds back in third.