Luge Canada

Junior Luge World Championships, Two Medals For Canada

Canada Luge - Media ReleaseDeteriorating weather conditions and the draw for start positions made a critical difference in today's Junior World Luge Championships however Canada still made the podium in both Men's Singles and Doubles competition.

The Doubles team of Grant Albrecht and Mike Moffat, both of Calgary, claimed the Silver Medal with a two run time difference of less than three one hundredths of a second behind USA's Patrick Anderson and Brian Wohlleb. Russia placed third. The other Canadian doubles team of Ryan Paton and Matt McMurray were unable to compete due to Ryan Paton being injured following a crash in training earlier this week.

In Men's singles, Calgary's Kyle Connelly capped off his final World Junior Championship with a Bronze medal finish behind Austria's Martin Abentung who claimed Gold and Germany's David Moller with Silver. In overall Junior World Cup point standings for the season, Connelly is still leading both Moller and Abentung with their next showdown being in Konigssee, Germany, next weekend. Due to
deteriorating weather conditions, today's race format was changed to a single run best time versus the standard two-run combined best time.

Grant Albrecht and Mike Moffat also represented Canada in Men's singles competition with a 8th and 13th place finish respectively. Moving up to compete against Junior 2 athletes (under age 20) was Calgary's 16-year-old Jeff Christie. Christie drew the 35th start position but still managed to place 21st out of the 51 racers. Christie is the Junior World Cup point leader in the Junior 1 category (under age 17) however Junior World Championships combine both Junior 1 and Junior 2 athletes into one race category.

Womens and team competition will run January 30th with Regan Lauscher (Red Deer) and Nicole Simon (Calgary) sliding for Canada.