Christian Eigentler new head coach of Austria
Salzburg (FIL/ÖRV) With three Olympic medals, the team of the Austrian Luge Federation (ÖRV) was the second most successful team after Germany at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing 2022.
With a new head coach and further changes in the coaching staff, the ÖRV team now wants to "create new stimuli and overtake the luge superpower of Germany in the medium term", as it says in a press release of the ÖRV. To this end, the ÖRV has hired Christian Eigentler, who has been FIL Technical Director since the 2014/15 season, as the new head coach.
Eigentler, who first coached the ÖRV junior team and subsequently the domestic World Cup team after ending his active career in 2009, moved to the International Luge Federation (FIL) in 2013, where he was Technical Director from the 2014/15 winter and until now. After the end of his employment, the 38-year-old from Stubai was officially introduced as the new ÖRV head coach on 4 April 2022.
"I had very exciting and instructive years at the FIL, where I was mainly focused on the rules and regulations and had to keep an eye on the sport of luge as a whole. Now the direct work with the athletes is in the foreground again, I know almost all of them from my former job at the ÖRV and I am very much looking forward to the common path that lies ahead of us", said the Tyrolean, who will be assisted by Peter Penz, a former team colleague. Penz, who together with doubles partner Georg Fischler was Olympic silver medallist in 2018, will be increasingly involved in technical development and material construction following the departure of Tobias Schiegl. "Peter has shared this task with Tobias in recent years and will now take on even more responsibility in this complex area," says the new head coach, who also reports on personnel changes in athletics training: "In order to be able to work even more efficiently in the physical area, we need smaller training groups, a methodology tailored to the target group and thus also more specialists. In addition to the Innsbruck Olympic Centre and Carson Patterson, work will in future also be directed by Andreas Pröller and Robin Pieper, and there will also be new partners in the area of physiotherapy with Löberbauer Performance," says Eigentler.
Since 2005, Rene Friedl has been the head coach of the Austrian Luge Federation. In addition to his coaching job, the Tyrolean by choice was mainly responsible for team management in the last few years - a mammoth task that was further aggravated by the pandemic and the Olympic Games in China. The last of his total of five Olympic campaigns has left clear traces on the 54-year-old. "I was physically and mentally ticked off after Beijing, like a large part of the team I did without a lot, and I need changes," says Friedl, whose expertise and wealth of experience will remain with the Austrian sport of luge. The successful coach, in whose era ten Olympic medals were won, will take care of the next generation with immediate effect, coaching the domestic youth A (13-15 years). "I need a little more air for myself and time for my family, wanted to travel less and minimise bureaucracy. I'm looking forward to working directly with the young athletes again," said the Germany native, who is to prepare the ÖRV youngsters for their entry into the junior class. Friedl, who was actively involved in the question of his successor, is now chatting it up with his preferred candidate Christian Eigentler.
For Markus Prock, the most important personnel questions have been clarified, "but one or two adaptations are not out of the question. We want to set new stimuli and continue to reach for the ceiling," says the federation president, who is "happy and at the same time very proud that we were able to bring Christian back to the ÖRV and install a top-class player in the youth sector with Rene. This means that we are well prepared for the present and the future," said Prock, who "would like to overtake Germany in the medium term and become the number one on the luge track.
Photos: ÖRV/Ebermann
