2-man luge story

By Ryan T. Blystone
World of Wonder Staff Writer-Editor

CESANA, Italy – Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger set the pace early and finished strong to claim the gold medal in two-man luge event on a chilly, windy Wednesday night.[ep
The brothers, who jumped out to a lead after running the difficult Cesana Pariol course in 47.028 seconds as the fifth of 21 teams in the first round, earned gold with an equally strong 47.469 as the last team to run in the second and final round.[ep
The victory gave Austria its second gold medal of these Torino Olympics and it gave the country, which hosted the first Olympic luge events in 1964 at Innsbruck, the ability to best one of its chief rivals, Germany.[ep
Andre Florschuetz and Torsten Wustlich earned silver for the Germans, finishing a total of .310 of a second behind the Lingers’ combined time of 1 minute, 34.497 seconds. Italy took bronze as Gerhard Plankensteiner and Oswald Haselrieder finished .433 back.[ep
As the Lingers waited their second turn, the lead changed hands several times. The United States’ duo of Preston Griffal and Dan Joye, who had opened with a time of 47.772, used a 47.688 to pull ahead with 10 of the 18 teams running in the second round still to go.[ep
Italy’s Christian Oberstolz and Patrick Gruber took over first place with a 47.336 (1:34.956 overall) two teams later and it lasted until Plankenstein and Haselrieder notched a 47.694 on their second run for a 1:34.930 total.[ep
After another German duo, Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch, failed to supplant the two Italian teams from the top spots, Florschuetz and Wustlich did knock both down with a 47.666 run for a 1:34.807 total.[ep
Austria’s second team of brothers, Tobias and Markus Schiegl, knocked Oberstolz and Gruber out of the medal race with their mark of 47.843. The Schiegls were then pushed to fourth overall as the Lingers took the gold.[ep
The two-man event, which concluded the luge’s Olympic program Italy, was marred by three first-round accidents, including one by the United States’ top medal-contending team of Brian Martin and Mark Grimmette.[ep
Both were able to walk away from the accident, but because they did not complete their first run, their chance to improve on a silver medal, won in 2002 at Salt Lake City, vanished. The team also won bronze in Nagano, Japan in 1998.[ep
Also crashing was the Ukraine team of Oleg Zherebetskyy and Roman Yazvinskyy. The duo actually completed their first run, but one of the team members was taken away by ambulance shortly after coming off the second-to-last turn awkwardly. Russians Dmitriy Khamkin and Vladimir Boitsov comprised the other team that crashed.[ep
NOTES: The victory prevented Austria from being shut out of the gold medal count in the luge. Italy won the men's single luge and Germany swept the top three spots in the women's single luge. There is not a two-woman luge Olympic event. ... The next time you have a choice between a 50 Euro "seat" for luge and a 35 Euro "standing" ticket do yourself a favor and take the standing ticket. Fans of the respective countries did spend much of the time before the luge event Wednesday in the stands, but soon stayed down much closer to the action when the event started. Just another lesson for fans to learn while they are partaking in Olympic events in Italy.
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