PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Wolfgang Kindl of Austria started his day with a luge World Cup doubles win. He ended it with a piece of luge history.
Kindl became the first slider in 32 years to win a men’s singles and doubles race in the same World Cup weekend — and he did it two hours apart. He teamed with Thomas Steu for the doubles win then held off Dominik Fischnaller of Italy for the singles victory.
The International Luge Federation said Kindl is the fourth men’s slider to pull off such a weekend sweep, joining Norbert Huber (three times in 1985, ’86), Hansjörg Raffl (1986) and Wilfried Huber (1993).
“To be honest, I was really nervous at the start,” Kindl said. “But it’s a wonderful day. I was always fast in training, but a race is something else.”
Kristers Aparjods was third for Latvia in the men’s singles race. The top American in the men’s singles race was Tucker West, who placed 12th.
Max Langenhan of Germany was fourth and remained in the World Cup overall lead, 58 points ahead of Nico Gleirscher of Austria heading into next weekend’s finale.
Germany took silver and bronze in men’s doubles, with Toni Eggert and Florian Mueller second and Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt taking third. Wendl and Arlt are a commanding 85 points ahead of Steu and Kindl for the World Cup title with one race left.
Zach Di Gregorio and Sean Hollander were seventh for the U.S.
Bobsled
It’s Francesco Friedrich atop the two-man bobsled world again.
The German star clinched his seventh World Cup seasonlong two-man points title Saturday with a second-place finish in the finale at Lillehammer, Norway.
Johannes Lochner won the race for Germany and finished second overall. Adam Ammour drove to third, giving the Germans a two-man medals sweep.
Lisa Buckwitz of Germany won the women’s monobob points title, sealing it with a third-place showing Saturday in that discipline’s finale of the World Cup season. Bree Walker of Australia won the race and finished second in the points chase, and Cynthia Appiah of Canada was second in Saturday’s monobob event.
The U.S. skipped the World Cup finale to spend more time preparing for next month’s bobsled and skeleton world championships in Lake Placid, New York.
