The natural track luge World Cup will celebrate an anniversary this coming weekend: 17 years after the first race was held in December 1992 the night event in Umhausen will be the 100th race in the world cup’s history. The winners in the first race in Rautavaara in Finland were Gerhard Pilz (AUT), Ljubov Panjutina (RUS) and Helmut Ruetz/Andi Ruetz (AUT). Only Gerhard Pilz is still active in the community, these days as the coach of the German team.

A lot has changed between Rautavaara 1992 and Umhausen 2010 knows Herbert Wurzer, World Cup coordinator and initiator of the world cup: “The most influencial changes were the start order, the quality of result lists and the marketing. At the beginning the start order was the result of a random draw, then we had groups of seated athletes which was really confusing and not very spectator friendly. Now the start order is according to the World Cup ranking and everybody knows that the best athletes start at the end.” Everybody has come to take it for granted that result lists are available as soon as the last athlete passes the finish line. “A lot has change here, too. We have the same type of lists at all races so that coaches, athletes, spectators and media people know what to expect and where to look for whatever information they want”, says Wurzer. “When we introduced sequence times for the respective parts of the track, it took a couple of years to find a good format. Today I think we have the highest level of result processing that can be reached. Also that host cities of World Cups receive financial support is quite new. This is only possible because we have sponsors and they bring in money. This was not the case 17 years ago.”

In the 100th race, the first on European soil in this winter, the duel between serial winner Patrick Pigneter (ITA) and rookie Thomas Schopf (AUT) will most likely be continued. But local heroes Thomas and Gerald Kammerlander (AUT) will also be strong contenders on their home track.

In the women’s event the eternal fight between Ekaterina Lavrentjeva (RUS), Renate Gietl (ITA) and Melanie Batkowski (AUT) will go in its next round.

In the double’s event Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) will be the ones to beat, but they will have to present themselves on new equipment as they totalled their sled in their crash in Novouralsk.
As always in Umhausen the single’s events will be held as a night race. The double seaters will open the 100th World Cup at noon at daylight.

Track Info “Grantau”:
Length: 1000m
Elevation Start: 1160m
Elevation Finish: 1040m
Difference: 120m
Average Descent: 12,1%

Program:
Friday, 8 Jan 2010
12.00pm: 1.Training run women and men
02.00pm: 1.Training run doubles
04.00pm: 2.Trainings run doubles
06.30pm: 2.Training run women and men

Saturday, 9 Jan 2010
10.30am: 1.competition run doubles
12:00am: 2.competition run doubles
05.00pm: 1.competition run women and men
07.00pm: 2.competition run women and men
09.00pm: Medal Ceremonies