Ten years for one goal
The ice dancers have five German championship titles Jennifer Janse van Rensburg and Benjamin Steffan collected, which is a nice omen for the Olympics, as they think: “Each title represents one of the five rings.” They have worked for ten years towards their big goal of taking part in the Winter Games. “It’s overwhelming,” said Steffan when they received special applause from the audience after the free program in Oberstdorf, where they train and are at home, at the German Championships.
The World Cup runners-up in pair skating, Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin from Berlin, once again offered a world-class performance, winning in Oberstdorf ahead of their colleagues Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel. These two couples are also qualified for the games. However, it has been clear for months that the DEU association cannot send individual runners to Milan. Here the focus is on the future. Julia Grabowski won the master class on her DM debut. And Genrikh Gartung, who was just 18 years old, ran the best freestyle of his young career in Oberstdorf: including a triple axel and two quadruple jumps.
Wellinger’s flight turbulence
Olympic ski jumping champion Andreas Wellinger30, also messed up his last competitive jump before the Four Hills Tournament and said goodbye to the break from competition with a sporting defeat. He missed qualifying in Klingenthal on Sunday because he couldn’t jump 111.5 meters. After finishing 40th in the individual on Saturday, the gold medalist from Pyeongchang 2018 announced that he would forego the World Cup in Engelberg, Switzerland.
“We will definitely do a training session at home or on a few other hills and try to pamper him up again,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher. Apart from a seventh place in Finland, Wellinger has been lagging behind the competition so far this season. “My jumping performance is just bad at the moment,” he said and described his problems as follows: “It’s such choppy movements. If you imagine it, you don’t drive the car around the curve in one swing, but with four or five corners. That’s exactly how jumping feels at the moment.”
Two weeks before the start of the Four Hills Tournament on December 29th, Philipp Raimund, 25, is the only serious contender for top placings. In Klingenthal on Saturday he achieved his fourth podium place of the Olympic winter, only having to admit defeat in third place to Domen Prevc from Slovenia and the Austrian Stefan Kraft. On Sunday he finished tenth. Felix Hoffmann (12th place) and Pius Paschke (26th place) still scored World Cup points at the end of the weekend, which was characterized by thick fog.
Series of triple victories
Bobsleigh Olympic champion Laura Nolte remains the measure of all things in two-man competitions. The world champion from Winterberg also won with pusher Deborah Levi at the third World Cup stop of the winter in Lillehammer. After two runs she was 0.56 seconds ahead of her German colleagues Kim Kalicki/Talea Prepens from Wiesbaden and Lisa Buckwitz/Neele Schuten from Königssee.
The men have also long had the hang of triple triumphs: the crew from was in the foursome Johannes Lochner (Berchtesgaden) with Thorsten Margis, Oliver Peschk and Georg Fleischhauer on Saturday 0.14 seconds ahead of the Francesco Friedrich team (Pirna) and Adam Ammour’s bobsleigh (Frankfurt). Lochner has thus snatched the lead in the overall ranking of the four-man bobsleigh from his rival Friedrich. Because on Sunday the thing happened again, albeit with a small variation. This time the result in the four-man bobsleigh was: Team Lochner ahead of Team Ammour ahead of Team Friedrich.
In survival mode
Toboggan world champion Max Langenhan came second at the World Cup in Park City/USA. Record world champion Felix Loch, 36, at least managed to make amends for the messed up previous day in the second round, finishing seventh. “The track is incredibly difficult, I was in survival mode the whole time,” said Langenhan after Jonas Müller from Austria won. The best German woman was Merle Fräbel in sixth place, Julia Taubitz came eighth. Summer Britcher from the USA secured victory. The German doubles are already ready for the Olympics: Toni Eggert/Florian Müller crossed the finish line fastest on the 2002 Olympic track in the men’s category, and Dajana Eitberger/Magdalena Matschina in the women’s race.
Fast laps
The only 18 year old Finn sun calf from Erfurt narrowly missed another surprise at the Speed Skating World Cup in Norway. In Hamar he couldn’t quite match his strong performances of the past few weeks on his parade distance, the 1500 meters, in 1:45.51 minutes and came fourth. World champion Jordan Stolz from the USA won in 1:44.16 minutes. Sonnekalb has already caused a sensation this season: he was on the podium three times, he came second twice and third once. Sophie Warmuth achieved her best individual World Cup result in the 500 meters in Hamar. The 23-year-old, also from Erfurt, came fourth in 37.80 seconds as the outstanding Dutchwoman Femke Kok (37.05) won.
