Germany takes 5 medals, Austria takes 4 in opening day of luge World Cup racing

WINTERBERG, Germany (AP) — Germany and Austria swept all nine available medals Saturday in the opening World Cup luge races of the season.

Felix Loch won the men’s singles race for Germany by posting the fastest time in both heats, edging Austria’s Jonas Mueller by about one-tenth of a second. Max Langenhan of Germany was third.

Germany also grabbed gold and bronze in women’s doubles, with Jessica Rosenthal and Cheyenne Rosenthal getting the win. Austria’s Selina Egle and Lara Kipp were second, while Germany’s Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina were third.

Austria got the win in men’s doubles, with Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schoepf topping Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt. Yannick Mueller and Armin Frauscher were third for Austria.

The World Cup for luge continues Sunday with women’s singles and a team relay.

USA Luge is not competing this weekend, opting instead to stay home and prepare for World Cups later this month on their tracks in Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, New York. This weekend’s races are not part of the Olympic qualifying system, another reason why the Americans opted to pass.

The World Cup bobsled and skeleton circuits are taking the weekend off before resuming competition next week in Lillehammer, Norway.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Felix Loch of Germany celebrates after the finish during the men's singles second run at the Luge World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (David Inderlied/dpa via AP)

Austria's Juri Thomas Gatt, left, and Riccardo Martin Schoepf, right, pose for a picture after the Luge World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (David Inderlied/dpa via AP)

Germany's Jessica Degenhardt, left, and Cheyenne Rosenthal celebrate their victory after the women's doubles in the Luge World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (David Inderlied/dpa via AP)

Felix Loch of Germany celebrates after the finish during the men's singles second run at the Luge World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (David Inderlied/dpa via AP)

Felix Loch of Germany celebrates after winning the men's singles during the Luge World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (David Inderlied/dpa via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The World Cup final will kick off at 3 p.m. EDT next July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

FIFA announced the start times for the tournament's 104 matches on Saturday, a day after the draw for the expanded 48-nation tournament. The kickoff time allows for prime-time viewing in Europe, where it will be 9 p.m., and Britain, where it will be 8 p.m.

The average 3 p.m. temperature over the past 30 years in East Rutherford on July 19 is 83 degrees (28 Celsius) with a RealFeel index of 89 (32), according to AccuWeather.

Nine of the 10 World Cup finals from 1978 through 2014 started in the 2-3:30 p.m. EDT range, the exception 2002 in Japan, which began at 7 a.m. EDT. The 2018 final started at 11 a.m. EDT and the 2022 championship of a tournament shifted to winter in Qatar at 10 a.m. EST.

The 1994 final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, kicked off at 12:30 p.m. local time (3:30 p.m. EDT).

FIFA announced the schedule and sites after factoring in travel and broadcast.

“Let’s just say it’s been a long night — or a short night,” chief tournament officer Manolo Zubiria said. “As I explained earlier to some of the coaches, we’ve tried to basically strike the right balance looking at the preparation, the recovery that the teams have to do in this very large footprint, the biggest World Cup ever, 16 cities, three countries, different climatic conditions, time zones.”

Zubira said goals included “trying to minimize travel for the teams and the fans to try to see their teams play, and obviously trying to see how to best expose this competition to the world, trying to find the right times for the kickoff times in specific cities, taking into consideration some restrictions.”

The opener at Mexico City on June 11 between El Tri and South Africa will start at 1 p.m. local (3 p.m. EDT).

Semifinals will start at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT) on July 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and 3 p.m. the following day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, both of which have retractable roofs.

Quarterfinals will begin at 4 p.m. on July 9 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, and noon (3 p.m. EDT) the following day at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The last two quarterfinals are on July 11, starting at 5 p.m. at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, and 8 p.m. (9 p.m. EDT) at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Of the quarterfinal venues, SoFi has a roof but air from the outside can flow in, and the other three are open air.

FIFA announced on Feb. 4 last year that the final was scheduled for New Jersey and that June 12 revealed site-specific matchups for games in the new round of 32, round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals.

Seventy-eight games will be in the U.S., including all from the quarterfinals on, and 13 apiece in Canada and Mexico.

During an event at the Capital Hilton, FIFA also announced sites of the 54 group stage games not finalized with Friday's draw, which fixed venues for only Groups A, B and D — which include co-hosts Mexico, Canada and the United States.

South Korea is the only team other than Canada and Mexico with no games in the U.S., playing its opener in Guadalajara against the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland or North Macedonia, then facing El Tri at the same venue and finishing the round against South Africa in Monterrey.

The U.S. first-round games will be a 6 p.m. local start (9 p.m. EDT) against Paraguay at Inglewood on June 12, a noon kickoff (3 p.m. EDT) vs. Australia at Seattle seven days later and a 7 p.m. start on June 25 at SoFi against Turkey, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo.

Japan’s Group F game against Tunisia at Monterrey, Mexico, on June 20 will be the 1,000th World Cup match.

Germany’s June 14 Group E opener against Curaçao will kick off at noon local (1 p.m. EDT) at NRG Stadium. Curaçao has the smallest population of a country to reach the World Cup at about 150,000.

“It will be played in Houston, which is a closed venue, indoor, so nobody can complain about heat or weather or wind or whatever,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said.

AP Sports Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

FILE - General view of the MetLife stadium during the Club World Cup semifinal soccer match between Fluminense and Chelsea in East Rutherford, N.J., Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)