WINTERBERG, Germany — Winter and international luge racing have had nothing in common recently as the World Cup tour and the Junior World Cup circuit have been hit with warm, rainy weather in the resort destination ironically known as Winterberg.

Despite the conditions, which USA Luge Head Coach Robert Fegg described as “raining insanely,” his athletes tallied three Youth A World Cup silver medals Saturday and a bronze medal Sunday. The three-day event concluded the youth and junior seasons in Winterberg, with a pair of junior World Cups wrapped around a Youth A World Cup. 

Matt Greiner, of Park City, Utah, sat in fourth place at the intermission of his singles race in Youth A, but staged a second heat rally and jumped up to second place. Also, the Youth A doubles teams of Maya Chan, of Chicago, and Reannyn Weiler, of Whitesboro, took the runner-up spot as did Sam Day, of Wantagh, and Sam Eckert, of Wilmington, in Youth A men. All five were members of the recent U.S. Youth Olympic Games team. The doubles races were curtailed to just one heat due to weather.

Greiner, ninth at the YOG in St. Moritz, had a two-heat total time of 1 minute, 29.611 seconds and closed to within 0.16 of winner Nico Baum, of Germany. Greiner ended the season in third place with 353 points, just two points from first place which was shared by Gints Berzins of Latvia and Timon Grancagnolo of Germany. Hunter Harris, of East Fairfield, Vermont, tied for 33rd on the season, while Eckert was 40th and Day 45th. All three raced in a partial season.

Chan and Weiler, fourth at the YOG, clocked a time of 27.237 as they trailed Germans Jessica Degenhardt and Vanessa Schneider by merely 0.08 of a second. The Americans took fifth overall on the season with 286 points. Degenhardt and Schneider won the division with five victories in six races.

Day and Eckert found speed at the bottom of the Winterberg track to grab their silver medal. Their time of 26.988 was 0.09 off the pace of Poland’s Kacper Imiolek and Lukasz Mackala. Day and Eckert finished eighth at the YOG and seventh in the Youth A World Cup rankings.

USA Luge had no entries in the Youth A women’s competition the previous weekend. Over the course of the Youth A World Cup season, McKenna Mazlo, of Souderton, Pennsylvania, another YOG team member, was 37th and Sophia Gordon, of Sussex, Wisconsin, finished tied for 39th. They did not participate in all races.

Keaton Jens, of St. Charles, Illinois, was 11th and 16th in the season-ending Junior World Cup men’s events. Jens finished in 13th in the overall Junior World Cup standings with 155 points. Ian Smith, of Carlisle, Massachusetts, was 14th in the first race, but did finish the season finale. He wound up 11th with 166 points. They were the lone entries as Zack DiGregorio was called up to the World Cup team and Sean Hollander only raced in the doubles competition where he finished fourth and third with Michael O’Gara on the weekend. Their bronze medal effort came in a time of 47.748, in a run where they posted the fifth best start time and accelerated down to the finish.

The steady results enabled Hollander, of Lake Placid, and O’Gara, of La Crescenta, California, to complete the season in fourth place with 268 Junior World Cup points. Max Ewald and Jakob Jannusch, of Germany, captured the final four races of the season en route to the tour title.

Hollander did compete in the final singles race, where he landed in eighth place, ending his season ranked 10th with 170 points. Despite missing the final two events, DiGregorio was eighth overall with 187 points.

Dana Kellogg and Duncan Segger have also spent the past two weeks getting World Cup experience and ended the junior season in sixth place. Kellogg, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, and Segger, of Lake Placid, won the season-opening junior race in Koenigssee.

The women’s junior race saw Sophie Kirkby, of Ray Brook, finish 15th and 12th, bringing her up to ninth place overall with 150 points. Mazlo made her junior debut over the weekend with 28th and 26th place results.

Chevonne Forgan, of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, has also missed the final two junior races as she, too, was sent to the World Cup team last week. She raced in the Nations Cup and then foreran on Sunday in Oberhof.

The USA entry raced into fifth place in each of the last two junior team competitions.

DiGregorio, Forgan, and Kellogg/Segger will rejoin their teammates for the Junior World Championships in Oberhof Feb. 21-22.

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USA LUGE

SIDETRACKS

The USA Luge Challenge is set to visit Titletown, adjacent to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Feb. 15-16. The final event of the winter, the Casella USA Luge Challenge, will occur at Titus Mountain in Malone, on Saturday, March 14. These events are free and open to luge enthusiasts of all ages. Youngsters, in particular, are encouraged to give it a try.

USA Luge will have its official unveiling of the new indoor refrigerated training center in Lake Placid on Saturday, April 4, in conjunction with the annual Masters race.