17 Olympic medals in luge - Italy ranks second among the nations

Altenberg (FIL) Italy's Olympic luge team has already won 17 medals, including seven gold medals. Thus, Italy is ranked second in the Olympic ranking of nations behind Germany.

The Italian team, which consists exclusively of South Tyrolean female and male luge athletes, has started ice training in Sochi, Russia. Eleven days were sledded there for the start of the season. After that, the team spent a few days at home and then a week in Sigulda in Latvia and is now in Altenberg, Germany, for another week of luge training on ice.

The sleds and equipment travelled about 15 hours by bus from Sigulda to Altenberg. Head coach Kurt Brugger was driving himself and reported: "Everyone at the track in Sigulda is trying really hard. We had perfect ice. We were able to have a great training right from the start. Only on the last two days the weather didn't cooperate so well, but nobody can do anything about that. We had to cancel our selection race for the World Cup team because of the warm wind."

The competition is to be made up for in Altenberg in the week beginning 25 October. In Yanqing (CHN), on the new Olympic track, there will then be another qualification race. A total of three races were planned for the World Cup team. According to the World Ranking List and the World Cup points, the Olympic team of the Italian lugers will be nominated in January 2022.

Luge head coach Kurt Brugger said: "The World Cup results will decide. If the nomination is very close, we can possibly use the Italian Championships in Igls before Christmas. Königssee would have been planned between Christmas and New Year, but unfortunately that is not possible now. We miss the track a lot. We are glad that we were so well received in Innsbruck-Igls and that we can luge there during the Christmas break. It's very difficult when you don't have your own track. I am always happy when we are welcomed in other countries and find good ice conditions."

Team Italy has come through the summer successfully, Lillehammer Olympic champion Brugger said: "Sandra Robatscher is on the road to recovery after her second shoulder operation and Andrea Vötter is already presenting herself athletically very strong again. Kevin and Dominik Fischnaller are also physically very fit. Both have shown good training in Sochi and Sigulda. Riding-wise they are already very confident again. Ludwig Rieder and Patrick Rastner had a harder time at the beginning in Sochi, but in the meantime they showed very stable runs again in Sigulda. On the other hand, Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner had a great start in the doubles and were very convincing".

Not only athletically, but also on the material a lot of work was done in South Tyrol over the summer. "Willi and Ossi have developed a lot of material during the summer months. We are currently testing a lot during training. I hope that there are some new things that will bring us a step forward. In any case, we are well prepared for China. The track in Sochi is a very good preparation track for Yanqing. For this reason, I wanted to start the Olympic season in Sochi from the very beginning. At that time we didn't even know that there will be a World Cup there," reported Brugger, who thinks the new Olympic track in China is very interesting. "It is the most modern and longest artificial ice track currently available. The start is steep but a bit flatter than Lillehammer. It's all designed to be very gigantic for my taste, but it's easily doable from a sporting point of view and within the normal range. We are looking forward to it and feel well prepared”.

Watch the video of the Italian team: https://fb.watch/8Tmf9bkVAH/