23 nations prepare to open 41st season in the Viessmann World Cup

 Innsbruck (RWH) A mini milestone for Innsbruck-Igls: When the starting signal for the 41st season in the Viessmann World Cup is fired this coming weekend (November 24-25), it will be the 15th time that the Olympic ice track at the foot of Patscherkofel Mountain has hosted the season opening race. Luge athletes competing in the BMW Sprint World Cup will also celebrate the fifth season of this event.

 In addition to Innsbruck-Igls, the International Luge Federation’s sprint racing series will also visit new venues when the tour moves to Lake Placid (USA) shortly before the Christmas break and the Russian venue of Sochi, which will host the season finale for the sprint event. At the six other stops on the World Cup calendar – Whistler, Calgary (both CAN), Königssee (GER), Sigulda (LAT), Altenberg and Oberhof (both GER) – the sprint events will be replaced by the Viessmann Team Relay World Cup presented by BMW.

 Since this Olympic discipline was introduced eight years ago, Germany have remained the unbeaten champions of the relay event. The team under head coach Norbert Loch also includes the overall winners from the Olympic season’s World Cup in the form of Natalie Geisenberger, Felix Loch, and the doubles pairing of Toni Eggert/Sascha Benecken. However, Toni Eggert and his partner Sascha Benecken – who won World Championship gold in Innsbruck-Igls in 2017 and Olympic bronze in 2018 – may in fact be missing from this year’s season opener in Tirol. Following Eggert’s fibula fracture in October, head coach Loch has deemed the risk to be “too high”.

 If Eggert/Benecken do indeed miss out on Innsbruck-Igls, the path to victory will be clear for Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt, who won a total of four gold medals, including team relays, at the 2014 and 2018 Olympics. It is worth noting that Wendl/Arlt and Eggert/Benecken could soon be the only active pairs in the doubles field to have won races in the Viessmann World Cup. Christian Oberstolz/Patrick Gruber retired from the track just before the Olympics, though their decision was not entirely voluntary. Saturday will then see Peter Penz/Georg Fischler – Olympic silver medallists from PyeongChang and the 2012 European Champions – make their final trip down the track.

 In the women’s event, the retirement of Erin Hamlin (USA) and Martina Kocher (SUI) has meant that both countries have lost their most successful female luge athletes of all time. In the men’s event, Andi Langenhan (GER), the 2012 European Champion and fourth place in the 2014 Olympics, and Sam Edney (who won Olympic silver in 2018 with Canada’s relay team), and the six-time Olympic competitor Shiva Keshavan (IND) have all also taken their final trip down the track.