SOCHI, Rus.—It wasn’t the result they were looking for, but Olympic medallists Tristan Walker and Justin Snith, will look to build on an 11th-place doubles finish at the Luge World Cup in Sochi, Russia on Saturday.

The 30-year-old veterans of the Canadian squad, who had a season’s-best eighth place finish last week on the 2014 Olympic Track, rattled off their two runs in a time of 1:40.296.

“It was better sliding this week, but unfortunately, a worse result,” said Calgary’s Snith. “They took some ice out of the track, so it made it easier today. We took a very conservative approach here to make it through these two weeks. Moving forward, we know we have to push it a bit more, but at the same time with the limited runs we have here, we knew this wasn’t the place to do that.”

The Canadians were just under one second behind Russia’s Andrei Bogdanov and Iurii Prokhorov who set the time to beat at 1:29.351. Germany’s Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken were second at 1:39.485, while Latvia’s Andris Sics and Juris Sics stopped the clock at 1:39.530 to secure the bronze medal.

Canada’s young doubles team of Cole Zajanski and Devin Wardrope enjoyed another top-15 finish, and their second-straight 14th-place result in Sochi. The Calgary-based World Cup rookies posted a two-run time of 1:40.616.

Reid Watts, of Whistler, B.C., was the lone Canuck in the men’s race, but did not finish his second run.

Luge Canada will send three women – Trinity Ellis (Pemberton, B.C.), Natalie Corless (Whistler, B.C.) and Kailey Allan (Calgary) – the the start handles for the first time this year in Sunday’s women’s race. It will mark the first World Cup individual start for Corless and Allan.

Complete Results in Sochi: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/eberspaecher-world-cup-16

The Canadian Luge Association is a not-for-profit organization responsible for governing the sport of luge across the country. With the financial backing of from the Government of Canada, Canadian Olympic Committee and Own the Podium, the Canadian Luge Association safely recruits and develops the nation’s current and future high-performance luge athletes with the goal of regularly climbing onto the international podium. For more information on the Canadian Luge Association, please visit us at www.luge.ca on the Internet.

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Chris Dornan

Media and Public Relations

Canadian Luge Association

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