The Latvian luge team took fourth place in the relay race on Saturday in the second stage of the World Cup at the Parksity track in the USA. In the individual competition, the best result of the Latvian luge riders was two tenth places.
In the team relay, Latvia was represented by Kendija Aparjode, Mārtiņš Bots/Roberts Plūme, Gints Bērziņš and Anda Upīte/Madara Pavlova. They were 0.961 seconds behind the surprise winners, the Italian lugers, who were not represented by the best athletes in the first stage in Winterberg. The Austrians took second place (+0.207 s), the Americans took third (+0.566 s), while the strong German team (+1.544 s) remained behind the Latvians.
Before the team competition, the decisive second men’s and women’s individual races took place (the first took place on the night of Saturday Latvian time). In the men’s competition, after a modest 16th time in the first attempt on Saturday, Gints Bērziņš achieved the ninth result in the second and moved up to the tenth position overall. The Austrian Jonas Miller was the best in both races, to whom the Sigulda lost by 1.387 seconds.
On the other hand, Kristers Aparjod also made mistakes in the second attempt and dropped from the twelfth position overall to the thirteenth, also losing to his teammate (1.686 s behind Miller). The third representative of Latvia, Kaspars Rinks, fell in the first race the day before and did not finish.
In the women’s competition, quite surprisingly, not a single athlete from Germany or Austria made it into the top three. Candy Aparjode, who was seventh after the first day, posted a tenth result on Saturday and also slipped to tenth position in the aggregate. She lost 0.371 seconds to the winner, American Summer Britcher.
Elina Ieva Bota, who qualified for the second run as the penultimate nineteenth, managed to move up two positions in the second run with the 12th time – 17th place (+0.810 s). Zane Kaluma (21st place in the first attempt) and Margita Sirsniņa (experienced a fall) did not qualify for Saturday’s second races.
The third stage of the World Cup will be held on December 19-20 at the Lake Placid track in the USA, but immediately after the New Year, the world’s best luge drivers will gather for the fourth stage in Sigulda.
