OBERHOF, Germany — Augusta native Julia Clukey turned in her second-best performance of the season to date on the World Cup luge tour Sunday.
Clukey finished 14th overall and second among the four Americans competing in the event.
Reigning Olympic gold medalist Natalie Geisenberger led a sweep by Germany of the top three positions, earning her sixth win in seven races this season with a combined two-run time of 1 minute, 23.104 seconds.
Erin Hamlin of Remsen, New York, a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist and 2009 world champion, was the top American with a time of 1:24.105, an effort that keeps her ranked fifth in the overall World Cup standings.
Clukey, a 2010 Olympian, was next among the Americans with a time 1:24.197, 1.093 seconds behind Geisenberger’s time. That was good for 14th place, trailing only her eighth-place finish at Lake Placid, New York, last month for her best World Cup result so far this winter.
The Cony High School graduate was particularly effective on the starts of each of her two runs. She had the fifth-fastest start time among the 24 competitors during her first run, and the second-fastest time for the start of her second run.
Emily Sweeney, a Maine native now living in Suffield, Connecticut, who has finished as high as fourth in a World Cup race this season, placed 16th at 1:24.219, while 2014 Olympian Summer Britcher of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, finished 18th in 1:24.427.
Sweeney is now eighth in the overall World Cup standings, while Britcher and Clukey are 13th and 14th, respectively.
The Viessmann FIL World Cup tour continues next week in Winterberg, Germany, a three-hour drive west of Oberhof, with women’s singles set for Sunday.