Natural Track Luge World Championship 2003

The 14th FIL Natural Track Luge World Championship took place from February 7th to 9th, 2003 in Železniki , Slovenia .

Technical data of the natural toboggan run

Surname	Drauh - Soriška planina
begin	1381  m. i. J.
target	1280  m. i. J.
Height difference	0.101 m
Average Tilt	0.013%
length	0.843 m

Single seater men

space	Surname	time
01	Robert Batkowski	2: 48.32 min
02	Gerhard Pilz	+ 00.57 s
03	Gerald Kallan	+ 01.11 s
04th	Anton Blasbichler	+ 01.39 s
05	Florian Breitenberger	+ 01.65 s
06th	Borut Kralj	+ 01.68 s
07th	Roland Kallan	+ 01.93 s
08th	Rudi Resch	+ 02.01 s
09	Andreas Gruber	+ 02.17 s
10	Andreas Castiglioni	+ 02.48 s
11	Gerald Kammerlander	+ 02.62 s
12	Ferdinand Hirzegger	+ 02.71 s
13	Alexei Lebedev	+ 02.72 s
14th	Martin Psenner	+ 03.13 s
15th	Daniel Quitta	+ 03.51 s
16	Marcus Cruel	+ 04.18 s
17th	Georg Maurer	+ 04.39 s
18th	Grega Spendov	+ 04.73 s
19th	Gašper Benedik	+ 04.97 s
20th	Ervin Marn	+ 05.66 s
21st	Corey Pusey	+ 08.36 s
22nd	Rudolf Schwarz	+ 08.76 s
23	Pyotr Popov	+ 09.98 s
24	Damian Waniczek	+ 10.56 s
25th	Christian Wichan	+ 10.93 s
26th	John Gibson	+ 11.29 s
27	Pavel Porschnew	+ 12.80 s
28	Knut Solheim	+ 12.91 s
29	Ivan Lazarev	+ 13.20 s
30th	Julien Schultz	+ 15.11 s
31	Alexander Yegorov	+ 15.25 s
32	Kristian Roel	+ 17.08 s
33	Kenan Strojil	+ 18.73 s
34	Borut Fejfar	+ 20.86 s
35	Michael Törnquist	+ 21.61 s
36	Jasmine Prnjavorac	+ 22.63 s
37	Loren Montcalm	+ 24.49 s
38	Tomáš Papiorek	+ 26.56 s
39	Caleb Underwood	+ 27.08 s
40	Petr Pulcer	+ 30.13 s
41	Juri Harzula	+ 35.09 s
42	Martin Nachmann	+ 36.86 s
43	Galabin Bozew	+ 39.69 s
44	Georgi Mirtschew	+ 49.66 s
45	William Ogilvie	+ 50.11 s
46	Dessislaw Charlow	+ 50.52 s
47	Emil Lasarov	+ 56.62 s
48	Miroslav Wuchalijski	+ 57.94 s
-	Jure Pohleven	DNF (1st run)
-	Žiga Pagon	DNS (1st run)
-	Tom Power	DNS (1st run)
-	Andrij Schurtyn	DNS (1st run)
-	Andrzej Laszczak	DNS (1st run)
-	Kenan Suljagic	DNS (1st run)
-	Denis Alimov	DNS (1st run)
-	Thomas Damian	DNS (1st run)

Date: February 8 (1st race) and February 9, 2003 (2nd and 3rd race)

The Austrian Robert Batkowski was only eighth after the first round, but achieved the best time in the second and third races and became world champion in the single-seater. The silver medal was won by the reigning European champion Gerhard Pilz , also from Austria. Gerald Kallan completed the Austrian triple victory with the bronze medal. For the first time, all of the World Cup medals in the men's singles went to Austria, while Italy had already achieved this twice before. Defending champion Anton Blasbichler , who had set the fastest time in the first run, was fourth.

Single-seater women

space	Surname	time
01	Sonja Steinacher	2: 51.77 min
02	Ekaterina Lavrentieva	+ 00.07 s
03	Irene Mitterstieler	+ 01.57 s
04th	Sandra Mariner	+ 01.73 s
05	Christa Gietl	+ 01.91 s
06th	Renate Gietl	+ 02.19 s
07th	Elvira Holzknecht	+ 02.45 s
08th	Julia Wetlowa	+ 02.95 s
09	Marlies Wagner	+ 03.41 s
10	Barbara Abart	+ 03.52 s
11	Sabine Kogler	+ 06.28 s
12	Michaela Maurer	+ 07.55 s
13	Živa Janc	+ 07.70 s
14th	Mateja Kralj	+ 08.38 s
15th	Oksana Jelessina	+ 15.54 s
16	Melissa Jones	+ 16.18 s
17th	Ekaterina Zaroutskaya	+ 17.03 s
18th	Karolina Waniczek	+ 27.72 s
19th	Sylvia Plucnarová	+ 47.78 s
20th	Radostina Vucheliyska	+1: 26.62 min
-	Melika Hasanovic	DNF (2nd run)
-	Ewelina Żurek	DNS (2nd run)
-	Magdalena Zawada	DNS (1st run)

Date: February 7th (1st race) and February 8, 2003 (2nd and 3rd race)

The Italian Sonja Steinacher successfully defended her world title with best times in the second and third races. Only seven hundredths of a second behind, the leading Russian Ekaterina Lavrentieva won the silver medal after race one . Lavrentjewa had also reached second place at the European Championships last year and was world champion in 2000. Bronze went to the Italian Irene Mitterstieler , for whom it was the only medal at a major event.

Two-seater

space	Surname	time
01	Wolfgang Schopf - Andreas Schopf	2: 00.88 min
02	Pavel Pornev - Ivan Lazarev	+ 01.81 s
03	Harald Kleinhofer - Gerhard Mühlbacher	+ 01.99 s
04th	Andrzej Laszczak - Damian Waniczek	+ 02.26 s
05	Denis Alimov - Roman Molwistow	+ 02.32 s
06th	Guido Hilgarter - Siegfried Troop	+ 03.01 s
07th	Günther Innerbichler - Alex Innerbichler	+ 04.17 s
08th	Andrzej Tyrna - Tomasz Kowalczyk	+ 05.68 s
09	Simone Demé - Michael Squinabol	+ 05.81 s
10	Alexander Yegorov - Pyotr Popov	+ 10.61 s
11	Dessislaw Charlow - Miroslav Wuchalijski	+ 32.13 s
12	Galabin Bozew - Georgi Mirtschew	+ 35.98 s
-	Armin Mair - Johannes Hofer	DNF (2nd run)
-	Jasmin Prnjavorac - Kenan Suljagić	DNS (2nd run)
-	Borut Kralj - Bostjan Vizjak	DNF (1st run)
-	Reinhard Beer - Herbert Kögl	DNF (1st run)
-	Tomáš Papiorek - Petr Pulcer	DNS (1st run)
-	Martin Graf - Harald Laimer	DNS (1st run)

Date: February 8, 2003 (both races)

After finishing second in the first run, the Austrians Wolfgang and Andreas Schopf managed to successfully defend their title with the fastest time in the second race. The half-time leaders Pawel Porschnew and Iwan Lasarew from Russia fell significantly behind the Austrians in the second round after a serious mistake in the upper part of the route and only sixth best run time and won silver. After fourth place in the first run, the Austrian duo Harald Kleinhofer and Gerhard Mühlbacher improved to third place with the second-best time in the second race.

Medal table

space	country	gold	silver	bronze	total
1.	Austria	2	1	2	5
2.	Italy	1	-	1	2
3.	Russia	-	2	-	2

Web links

• Results on the website of the BSD
• Overall result women singles
• Overall result for men’s singles
• Overall result, two-seater

Individual evidence

1. ↑ General news of February 8, 2003: Natural Track Luge World Championships in Zelezniki (SLO) - Results 2nd day International Luge Federation, February 8, 2003, accessed on May 15, 2010