Warsaw (fil-press). On the 49th FIL Congress in Warsaw/ Poland, the President of the International Luge Federation (FIL) from Berchtesgaden/ Germany was able to look back onto a successful season. It was marked by wide coverage of our events in the print media as well as on television, said Fendt. As an example he mentioned a broadcast on the World Cup in Lake Placid, which had attracted 2.7 million spectators, with a market share of 21.5 per cent. According to Fendt, the highest market share was reached at the team competition as part of the World Championships in Calgary.
“Our strategy in this field seems to be right“, explained Fendt to the delegates from 29 nations. In the past season, the FIL invested more than 1.3 million German Marks for the TV productions; resulting from our television deals, a great share of this money came back to the FIL as license fees or reimbursement of production costs.“ Fendt encouraged all participants to stand up to the rising competition pressure by coming up with new initiatives. For this reason, he said, a new contract comprising five years up to 2006 has been signed with the agency Sport A. This contract continues to ensure wide television coverage on German and European television and additionally earns us considerable money in TV license fees“, said Fendt. For the upcoming winter, the FIL President, who has been in office since 1994 as the founding President Bert Isatitsch’s successor, announced another increase in the price money for successful athletes, explaining that in the past winter more than 400,000 German Marks had been available for this purpose. On the other hand, the agency CWL had developed the idea of introducing and financing a jackpot, which the top athlete Sylke Otto from Germany had actually hit, Fendt continued. Fendt: „The super jackpot of US$ 50,000 remained untouched though, but was very close to being hit.”
In his review of the year, Fendt praised the development and support program in artificial and natural track luge as the „FIL show-piece“. Fendt: „Our individual support program has proven to be extremely successful and important for the further development of our sport.“ As an example he mentioned the eleventh rank of Angela Paul from New Zealand at the World Cup in Lake Placid. Fendt announced that the FIL is going to finance this program again with more than a million German Marks. „For a small federation this is a great achievement“, said Fendt. Altogether 35 National Federations participated in the FIL races in artificial and natural track luge.
Fendt also announced that the FIL will continue their efforts in order to succeed with the important aim of having natural track luge included in the program of the Olympic Winter Games in Turino 2006.
