Gruber Wins First of the Year

From Passeiertal, ITA

(Jan. 14, 2018) Italy’s Alex Gruber helped lead a sweep of the FIL Natural Track events in Passeiertal, winning the third gold in as many events for Italy.

Gruber came into the second heat .11 behind Thomas Kammerlander of Austria. Needing a quick second run, Gruber set the fast time of the race to put the pressure on Kammerlander.

Kammerlander couldn’t answer, coming down .25 slower than Gruber in the second run, giving the gold medal to Gruber by .14.

The two were a full second ahead of Patrick Pigneter of Italy. The Paseiertal race was the third time in three events that Gruber, Kammerlander, and Pigneter swept the podium in some order or another.

Joshua Reeves and Dex Unwin finished 19th and 20th for Great Britain.

Results:

Pos Name Nation Bib Run 1 Run 2 Total
1 Alex Gruber ITA 36 54.57 54.25 1:48.82
2 Thomas Kammerlander AUT 38 54.46 54.50 1:48.96
3 Patrick Pigneter ITA 37 55.05 54.91 1:49.96
4 Michael Scheikl AUT 34 55.24 55.15 1:50.39
5 Gregori Bukin RUS 28 55.03 55.42 1:50.45
6 Aleksandr Egorov RUS 33 55.23 55.32 1:50.55
7 Stefan Federer ITA 35 55.19 55.44 1:50.63
8 Florian Clara ITA 25 55.49 55.40 1:50.89
9 Christian Schopf AUT 32 55.67 55.71 1:51.38
10 Florian Glatzl AUT 31 55.83 55.66 1:51.49
11 Aleksey Martyanov RUS 22 55.71 55.91 1:51.62
12 Juri Talikh RUS 23 55.95 55.91 1:51.86
13 Jack Leslie NZL 26 56.95 56.90 1:53.85
14 Veselin Iliev BIH 27 57.45 57.90 1:55.35
15 Christian Wichan GER 24 57.91 57.53 1:55.44
16 Isa Guzeloglu TUR 17 57.98 58.83 1:56.81
17 Myroslav / Lenko UKR 21 59.02 58.99 1:58.01
18 Andriy Demchuk UKR 18 58.98 59.11 1:58.09
19 Jjoshua Reeves GBR 19 60.78 59.51 2:00.29
20 Dex Unwin GBR 7 60.91 59.91 2:00.82
21 Patryk Budny POL 15 59.97 61.08 2:01.05
22 Coskun Ercoskun TUR 13 61.08 60.32 2:01.40
23 Ciprian Codrut Tazlaoanu ROU 6 60.85 61.12 2:01.97
24 Andrii Hirniak UKR 12 60.98 61.22 2:02.20
25 Rafal Zasuwa POL 20 62.46 61.00 2:03.46
26 Filimon Adrian ROU 1 61.74 61.95 2:03.69