Gangwon (FIL) – The young South Tyrolean lugers cleaned up impressively at the Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in South Korea, dominating in Luge. The junior team from Italy secured a total of six medals in five competitions and attracted worldwide attention.

After two days of competition at the Alpensia Olympic Sliding Center and three gold, one silver and one bronze medal for the Italians, the focus of the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games was on the luge team relay at the end of the YOG on Tuesday, 23 January. The Italian team impressed with their performance in the relay, winning their fourth gold medal. The team, consisting of Alexandra Oberstolz, Leon Haselrieder and the doubles Philipp Brunner/Manuel Weißensteiner, showed the strongest presence on the challenging Olympic track in South Korea.

Alexandra Oberstolz laid the foundation with her convincing run. Men’s singles winner Leon Haselrieder also put in another brilliant run in the relay, with the fastest time of all the young men. And the youth Olympic champions Philipp Brunner and Manuel Weißensteiner were once again the fastest starters. In the end, the four young South Tyroleans took team relay gold with a time of 2:29.470 minutes ahead of the teams from Latvia and Austria.

Two-time Youth Olympic champion Alexandra Oberstolz is confident: “We are a strong Italian team and hope that we can compete at the big Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. It would be a big dream of ours. The Youth Olympic Games are a great experience and it’s incredible to go home with two gold medals in doubles and team and a silver in singles.”