Gerald Kallan
Gerald Kallan ( born April 29, 1979 in Altenmarkt im Pongau) is a former Austrian natural track luge. He started in the single-seater, was established in 2000 world champion, won three more bronze medals at World and European Championships and two gold medals at the Junior Championships. In the World Cup he won two races, drove a total of eight times on the podium and twice reached third place in the overall World Cup. His brother Roland was also natural track luge.
Career
Kallan took from 1994 International junior championships. While he, too, along with his brother Roland started in 1994 in doubles and scored the fourth place, Kallan was active later only in the single-seater. In the years 1998 and 1999 he won the gold medal at the European Junior Championships in Feld am See and the Junior World Championships in his hometown Huttau. From 1998 he also started in the general class and won after his tenth place at the 1998 World Cup in Rautavaara the bronze medal at the European Championships 1999 in Szczyrk.
After Kallan had previously achieved several top 10 results, his first podium succeeded at the beginning of the 1999/2000 season with third place in the World Cup in Oberperfuss. Five weeks later, the then 20 -year-old celebrated his biggest success at the World Championship 2000 in Olang. Thanks to the fastest time in the first of the three races he was just three hundredths of a second ahead of his compatriot Gerhard Pilz world champion in single-seaters. In the World Cup in the penultimate race of the season he managed another third place, which he finished fifth in the World Cup. He also scored the fifth place in the overall standings in the 2000/2001 season. His only podium finish of the winter was the second place finish at the season finale at his home track in Huttau. At the beginning of the next season he drove in Olang in second place, did not come in the rest of the winter, but on the podium in the World Cup and fell back to seventh. At the World Championship 2001 in Stein an der Enns he finished seventh and in the 2002 European Championships in Frantschach - Sankt Gertraud fifth.
His only two World Cup victories celebrated Kallan in the season 2002/2003. The first succeeded in the season opener in Fie when he prevailed by three hundredths of a second against his compatriot Robert Batkowski in the final of the same competition. The second victory he celebrated four weeks later in Moscow. With another two fourth and a fifth place he reached, as in the 2003/2004 season in which he went to the podium twice but remained without a victory, the third in the overall World Cup. Even with the title bouts Kallan was successful in these two years. Both in the 2003 World Cup in Železniki as well as at the European Championships in 2004 in his home Huttau he won the bronze medal. In his last World Cup season 2004/2005 Kallans best result was a fifth place in the second World Cup race of Oberperfuss. At the 2005 World Championships he no longer participated.
Sporting successes
World Championships
- Rautavaara 1998: 10 seater
- Olang 2000: 1 single-seater
- Stein an der Enns 2001: 7 seater
- Železniki 2003: 3 seater
European Championships
- Szczyrk 1999: 3 seater
- Frantschach 2002: 5 seater
- Huttau 2004: 3 seater
Junior World Championships
- Aosta 1997: 11 seater
- Huttau 1999: first single-seater
European Junior Championships
- Length field 1994: 4 doubles ( with Roland Kallan ), 15 seater
- Szczyrk 1996: 7 seater
- Feld am See 1998: first single-seater
World Cup
- 2x 3rd place in the overall World Cup single-seater in the seasons 2002/2003 and 2003/2004
- 2x 5th place in the overall World Cup single-seater in the seasons 1999/2000 and 2000/2001
- 8 podiums, including two victories:
Awards (excerpt)
- 2000: Gold Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria