Frisch finishes women's luge in 19th place

Aileen Christina Frisch of Korea reacts after her third run at the National Sliding Centre in Beijing on Tuesday. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Korea's Aileen Christina Frisch finished in 19th place in the women's luge on Tuesday night, making it into the top 20 to complete in all four runs of the competition.

In the luge, competitors complete multiple runs with their times tallied to determine the rankings. Only the top 20 athletes after the first three runs are able to progress to the final fourth run. Medals are determined based on the combined times of all four runs.

Frisch is the only Korean athlete at the Beijing Games to have reached the fourth run.

Frisch, a German born athlete who naturalized to Korea in 2016, finished the first run on Monday in 23rd place with a time of 59.776 seconds, 1.421 seconds behind Julia Taubitz of Germany, who was in first place after setting a new track record on the first run.

She shaved 0.3 seconds off that time in her second run, at 59.642, ranking at No. 20 on that run to take her overall time to 1:59.418 seconds, 2.593 seconds behind Natalie Geisenberger of Germany in first place.

Returning to the track on Tuesday, Frisch shaved another half second off her time in the third run, at 59.055, to land at No. 18 on the run and lift herself into the top 20 with a combined time of 2:58.473 to take 19th place overall.

Frisch was able to hold onto the No. 19 spot despite a difficult fourth run that saw her record a time of 1:01.811 to take her total time to 4:00.284, 6.830 seconds behind gold medalist Geisenberger. Anna Berreiter of Germany took silver and Tatyana Ivanova of the Russian Olympic Committee took bronze.

Frisch previously competed for Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, finishing eighth out of 30 competitors.

Frisch is one of four Korean athletes competing in the luge in Beijing. Lim Nam-kyu finished his three runs in the men's competition on Sunday in 30th place, while Park Jin-young and Cho Jung-myung are set to compete in the doubles competition starting Wednesday.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]