Armin Mair (born August 5, 1977 in Merano ) is a former Italian natural track luge . At the turn of the millennium he and his brother David Mair were among the world's best in two-seater. After becoming junior world and junior European champions once , they became world champions in doubles in 2000 and world champions in team competitions in 2001 and won two more medals at world and European championships in 1999 and 2001 . In addition, they won seven World Cup races and in the 1999/2000 season the overall double-seater World Cup. Because David Mair switched to skeleton , Armin Mair started with Johannes Hofer in 2002 and won another two world championship medals with him in 2005.
From the 1998/1999 season , the Mair brothers were also successful in the two-seater World Cup . Armin Mair almost never took part in World Cup races in a single-seater. They achieved three fourth places in the 1998/1999 season and celebrated their first World Cup victory at the season finale in Aurach , placing them fourth in the overall World Cup. The 1999/2000 season was the most successful for the two brothers. After finishing second in the first two World Cup races, they celebrated their second World Cup victory on January 23, 2000 in Gummer . A week later they became world champions in doubles in Olang . After a third place in the fourth World Cup race of the season, Armin and David Mair won the last two World Cup races in Železniki and Aosta and thus secured the overall World Cup victory with 40 points ahead of the Austrians Reinhard Beer and Herbert Kögl .
In the 2000/2001 season , the Mair brothers won the World Cup race in Lüsen and stood on the podium twice more. In the overall World Cup, however, they were relegated to second place by 15 points by the Austrians Wolfgang and Andreas Schopf , who won the last two races of the season. Also at the 2001 World Championships in Stein an der Enns Schopf / Schopf won ahead of Mair / Mair, who were still in the lead after the first run, but only achieved the fourth fastest time in the second. In the team competition held for the first time, however, Mair / Mair won the gold medal with Sonja Steinacher and Anton Blasbichler in Team Italy I. In the 2001/2002 season , after finishing fifth in Olang , the Mair brothers won the second World Cup race in Olang and then the parallel competition in Triesenberg , leading them to the overall World Cup tied with Poland's Andrzej Laszczak and Damian Waniczek at halftime . In the last three World Cup races she came fourth twice and third once and finally fell back to third place in the final ranking behind Laszczak / Waniczek and Beer / Kögl. At the European Championship in 2002 at the end of the season in Frantschach-Sankt Gertraud David Mair did not participate, so Armin Mair along with Michael Graf began in the doubles. They took seventh place.
David Mair switched to skeleton after this winter and Armin Mair went on to compete in doubles with Johannes Hofer , who was six years his junior and who had not yet started in the World Cup. In their first season together, 2002/2003 , they only took part in three of the six World Cup races and achieved placements between sixth and eighth. At the World Championships in 2003 in Železniki they remained without a result because of a fall in the second round. In the next two years, Armin Mair and Johannes Hofer took part in all World Cup races. They always achieved positions between fourth and sixth and narrowly missed a podium several times. They came closest to one on January 8, 2005 in Unterammergau , when they were only four hundredths of a second slower than third-placed Denis Alimow and Roman Molwistow . In both the 2003/2004 season and the 2004/2005 season , they achieved sixth place in the overall World Cup as the best Italian two-seater pair. At the 2004 European Championship in Hüttau they stayed true to their World Cup results with a fifth place, but at the 2005 World Championship in Latsch Armin Mair and Johannes Hofer won two medals. On the first day of the competition they won the bronze medal in the team competition with the two single-seaters Renate Gietl and Anton Blasbichler and the next day behind the Russians Porschnew / Lasarew and ahead of the Poles Laszczak / Waniczek the silver medal in the doubles. After the 2004/2005 season, Armin Mair ended his career, while Johannes Hofer competed for two more years.
Harald Steyrer, Herbert Wurzer, Egon Theiner: 50 years of FIL 1957–2007. The history of the International Luge Federation in three volumes. Volume II, Egoth Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-902480-46-0 , pp. 285-407.
Italy
