Cesana-Pariol (pps) The fight for points in the Viessmann Luge World Cup is suspended for the time being, the athletes are now focussing on the medal hunt. First at the 41st FIL Luge European Championships on the Olympic track in Cesana-Pariol, Italy, next weekend (January 12-13, 2008), and then at the 40th FIL Luge World Championships in Oberhof, Germany, two weeks later (January 25-27, 2008). At the beginning of February, the Viessmann Luge World Cup then resumes in Altenberg, Germany.

About 80 athletes from 15 nations will compete at the European Championships on the demanding ice labyrinth that was built on the occasion of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino. FIL Sport Coordinator Karl-Heinz Anschuetz expects ten relay teams to participate on Sunday (January 13, 2008 as of 12:00 hrs) – as the highlight and last event of the Europeans. It will be the very first time in the history of the International Luge Federation, FIL, that a championship title and medals will be awarded in the new FIL Team Relay event.

This innovative competition has already been carried out three times this season. The US team won the first first event of the SUZUKI Team Relay in Lake Placid, Austria celebrated a victory in Winterberg and the German team won the relay event in Koenigssee last weekend. “We are certainly not the favourites in Cesana-Pariol”, is the understatement of Germany’s head coach Thomas Schwab. As one of the “founding fathers” of the relay format the former European champion in the double-seater (together with Wolfgang Staudinger in 1988), he is well aware of the unpredictability of this competition.