Andreas Linger (born 31 May 1981 in

Hall in Tirol Hall in Tirol is a town in the Innsbruck-Land district of Tyrol (state), Tyrol, Austria. Located at an altitude of 574 m, about 5 km (3 mi) east of the state's capital Innsbruck in the Inn (river), Inn valley, it has a population of 14,77 ...

) is an Austrian former

luge A luge () is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds Supine position, supine (face-up) and feet-first. A luger begins seated, propelling themselves initially from handles on either side of the start ramp, then steers by using the Ca ...

r who competed internationally since 2000. He and his younger brother Wolfgang began luging at a very young age, and did their first doubles run when they were 14. Linger has won five medals at the

FIL World Luge Championships The FIL World Luge Championships, part of the International Luge Federation (FIL) have taken place on an almost annual basis in non-Winter Olympics years since 1955. These championships are shown for artificial tracks. See FIL World Luge Natural ...

with three golds (Men's doubles:

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

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and

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) and two bronzes (Mixed team: 2003 and men's doubles:

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). He also earned seven medals at the

FIL European Luge Championships The FIL European Luge Championships, part of the International Luge Federation (FIL) have taken place since 1914. From 1914 to 1934, these championships were part of the Internationaler Schlittensportsverband (ISSV - International Sled Sport Federa ...

with a gold (Men's doubles:

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

), three silvers (Men's doubles:

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, Mixed team: 2008, 2010), and three bronzes (Men's doubles:

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and 2014, Mixed team: 2004). The Lingers were overall

Luge World Cup The Luge World Cup season is a yearly competition first organized by the International Luge Federation since 1977–78. The World Cup is the highest level season-long competition in the sport. Men's singles ;Medals: ;World Cup Stages medals ( ...

men's doubles champions in 2011-12 and scored 15 World Cup race victories. They were two time Olympic champions in the men's doubles event at the

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and the

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. They won in 2006 despite Wolfgang having broken his leg in a luge crash the previous year. In 2010, they successfully defended their gold medal against another team of brothers, Andris and Juris Šics of

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Athletic career

Introduction to luge

Andreas competed in a number of sports as a child, including skiing and soccer. He was ten years old when he tried an artificial Iuge track for the first time, on a track that had been used for Olympic events in 1964 and 1976. His brother was one of the few other members of their local luge club who tried it. Even at that young age, Andreas did not think of Iuge as being a particularly dangerous sport. Five years later, when they were both 14, they were allowed to try doubles Iuge for the first time. Despite competing as individuals or in mixed doubles in some events, the Wolfgang and Andreas have seen their most significant success as a doubles team.

2002–2004

The Linger brothers placed 8th in the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (; Gosiute dialect, Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; ; Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), were an international wi ...

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. Their runs were relatively consistent, at 43.330 seconds and 43.354 seconds, but they would still trail their countrymen

Tobias Tobias is the transliteration of the , which is a Graecisation of the Hebrew biblical name . With the biblical Book of Tobit being present in the Deuterocanonical books and Biblical apocrypha, Tobias is a popular male given name for both Chri ...

and Markus Schiegl. By the following, season, however, the Lingers challenged the Schiegls as the best doubles luge team in Austria, beating the latter at the inaugural Krombacher Challenge Cup and setting a course record there.

2006 Winter Olympics

Linger's brother Wolfgang was injured when he and his brother crashed in an Olympic test run in 2005, breaking the ankle and

fibula The fibula (: fibulae or fibulas) or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. ...

in Wolfgang's left leg. Only a year after the crash, Linger and his brother competed in their second Winter Olympics, the 2006 Games in

. The doubles competition there saw crashes by three different teams, one of which resulted in a Ukrainian competitor being taken to a hospital in an ambulance. As a result, the event was described in the media as being 'plagued' by crashes. The Lingers managed to win the gold medal, defeating defending 2002 champions André Florschütz and Torsten Wustlich of

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2010 Winter Olympics

The Linger brothers entered the

defending their 2006 gold medal and as strong favorites to be medal contenders. Controversy surrounded the luge competitions at the 2010 Games following the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a crash during a training run prior to the opening of the Games. After Kumaritashvili's death, changes were made in the ice profile of the turn where he crashed, padding was added to support columns like the one he hit, and the start of the doubles competition was moved up to what had previously been the junior start. This meant that competitors only had six training runs on the altered course in which to develop an entirely new strategy for their runs. After the first run, the Linger brothers led their closest competitors, brothers Andris and Juris Šics of

, by a razor-thin margin of .088 seconds. However, they expanded their lead in the second run, winning the gold medal by a cumulative .264 seconds. Their victory prevented the German team at the Games from sweeping all three luge medals, as German competitors had previously won both the men's and women's singles events. Linger told reporters after the victory that it had been more difficult than the medal in Turin four years earlier, given the pressure of being defending champions and the favorite to win.

2014 Winter Olympics

The Linger brothers were unable to make it a hat-trick of golds at the

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, finishing second to the German duo of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, whose lead of .522 seconds over the Lingers was the largest winning margin in the history of the Olympic doubles competition. However the silver medal made them the second most successful pairing in Olympic doubles luge, behind Stefan Krauße and Jan Behrendt. Less than six weeks later the Linger brothers announced their retirement from the sport.

Personal life

Linger lives in Absam,

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, and serves in the Austrian army.

References

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External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Linger, Andreas 1981 births Living people Austrian male lugers Lugers at the 2002 Winter Olympics Lugers at the 2006 Winter Olympics Lugers at the 2010 Winter Olympics Lugers at the 2014 Winter Olympics Olympic lugers for Austria Olympic gold medalists for Austria Olympic silver medalists for Austria Olympic medalists in luge Medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2006 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2014 Winter Olympics Sportspeople from Hall in Tirol Lugers from Tyrol (federal state)