ALTENBERG, Germany -- Julia Taubitz spent four months chasing another World Cup title. The German sliding superstar won it by about the slimmest possible margin.
The Olympic champion is the women's World Cup luge singles champion once again, clinching her fifth consecutive title and sixth overall on Sunday with a second-place finish in the season finale at Altenberg.
Merle Fraebel of Germany won the race, and Taubitz needed a second-place finish to clinch the World Cup title. She got it, holding off third-place finisher Kendija Aparjode of Latvia by 0.006 seconds -- about 25 times faster than a typical blink of an eye.
But it was enough.
"Today was a perfect day," Taubitz said. "It was the most exciting overall World Cup victory of my career."
Taubitz finished the season with 634 points, four more than Fraebel. Germany's Lisa Schulte finished the season third, and Summer Britcher of the U.S. was fourth in the overall standings.
It was Britcher's best season finish since she placed third overall in 2018-19.
Loch, an eight-time World Cup overall champion, held off Italy's Dominik Fischnaller for the record-tying win. Austria's David Gleirscher was third.
Austria won the final team relay of the season, with Italy second and Latvia third. The U.S. did not have a team in the relay, since Britcher was the only American slider taking part in the World Cups after the Olympics.
Teams need a men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles and women's doubles team to be part of a relay entry.
As the major international sliding season ends, Germany took 149 medals in bobsled, skeleton and luge races at the World Cup and Olympic level to nearly match the total from the rest of the world combined.
Austria won 57 sliding medals this winter, and the U.S. won 26.
