The young talent of Latvian luge sports, Kaspars Rinks from Ropaži, won the last sixth stage of the Junior World Cup on Friday at the Bludenc track in Austria. Unfortunately, the failure experienced the day before prevented this season’s world and European champion from triumphing in the World Cup overall.
In the races, K.Rink achieved the first and second results and was ahead of the overall second place winner Marco Leger from Germany by 0.027 seconds. Roberts Dreimanis (+1.409 s) and Aleksis Siniilnikovs (+1.669 s) ranked 14th in the competition of 30 luge drivers.
In the six stages of the World Cup, Rink won four victories and collected 491 points in total. However, the mistake made in the second race of Thursday’s race, which threw Kaspar down to the tenth place in the stage, allowed M. Leger to become the leader of the overall season standings, who defended this position with the second place on Friday (510 p.). R.Dreimanis ended the season in 15th place (134 points).
In the competition for juniors, Zane Kaluma from Saulkrasti, with the eighth and sixth place in the races, took the seventh place in the last stage, 0.934 seconds behind the winner Anka Jēnika from Germany, and also finished in the seventh place in the overall standings (226 points).
On Saturday, the last competition of the season will be held by the junior double crews, as well as the last team competition. In all three disciplines, young Latvian luge riders have good hopes for prizes both in the stage and in the season overall.
