Austria Wins Relay Finale, Germany Takes Overall Title

From Winterberg, GER

(February 26, 2023) – Austria had been strong all weekend long in Winterberg, and they capped off a successful weekend with a dominating win in the Team Relay event.

The team of Madeleine Egle, Jonas Müller, and Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schöpf broke the track record previously held by Germany on their run to slide into the lead from the fourth starting spot.

Italy was next, and while the Italians were clean, they couldn’t quite match the pace of most of the contenders.

The American team of Emily Sweeney, Tucker West, and Zack Digregorio and Sean Hollander also threw down a set of clean runs, enough to move into second place with two teams to go.

The Latvians struggled on their run and fell behind Italy, leaving only Germany to try to defend their home ice and track record.

Anna Berreiter kicked things off for the Germans, and despite a clean run was a quarter of a second back. Max Langenhan, who’d won nearly everything he’d entered this season, fell another .15 behind the time Jonas Müller put down. That left Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt between Austria and gold. The duo was quick, but not quick enough as Austria took gold ahead of Germany, with the United States third.

Italy, Latvia, and Romania rounded out the top six.

Germany took the season title, holding off a strong Latvian team who finished second overall. With their win, Austria edged out the United States for third place overall by just five points.

Results: