Berchtesgaden (pps/February 2, 2010) After a magnificent World Cup season the world of luge is now waiting for the absolute season's highlight, the XXI Olympic Winter Games in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, with the three luge disciplines on February 13-14 (men's singles), February 15-16 (women's singles) and February 17 (doubles'). The high-speed track has already given proof of its Olympic suitability at the 2008-09 World Cup final as well as at the International Training Week last autumn. „It is a demanding track with a new and rather special challenge: the high speed“. This is the opinion of Italy's Armin Zoeggeler, the currently most successful luger with two Olympic gold medals, five World Championship titles and nine overall World Cup victories.
And even bearing in mind that the host Canada has not yet earned an Olympic luge medal, the inhabitants are truly crazy about the fastest sport on ice. All five Olympic luge competition days are completely sold out to crowd-capacity with each 12,000 spectators. This is what Race Director Ed Moffat already announced quite a while ago.
The large number of spectators are not least attracted by the speed record of Felix Loch. At the World Cup final the two-time World champion achieved a top speed of 153.98km/h. Thus, Loch was considerably faster than the skeleton or bobsleigh pilots who carried out their Olympic test shortly before. „Of course it always depends on the weather conditions. But I think we'll achieve a speed of around 155km/h at the Olympic Games,“ predicts Armin Zoeggeler.
The International Luge Federation, FIL, on the other hand, wants to put a stop to the „speed records“ and intends to prescribe mandatory top speed limits for new tracks. „The health and security of our athletes is more important to us than new records“, explained FIL President Josef Fendt. But as the 1976 Olympic runner-up and two-time World champion, Fendt is also very much looking forward to the season's highlight.
