The remote little village Moos in the Passeier valley is ready to host the natural track World Cup again. It is the very same place where last February the final decisions in the World Cup fell. Nearly the same group of people will meet here, just this time they know that they will be racing on the 2009 World Championships track. In this year´s FIL congress the Championships have been given to Passeier.

Patrick Pigneter (ITA) will be the man to beat. As of this fall he has become a professional athlete, which puts him into a small group of lugers. Most of his colleagues have to work at least part time. Nevertheless he knows that it won´t be easy to top his last year´s perfect season. He has a lot of strong competitors within his own team, but also Austria´s reigning World Champion Gernot Schwab will be a strong contender for World Cup points.

In the women´s contest Russia´s Ekatharina Lavrentjeva has been dominating the past seasons. Only Renate Kasslatter and Renate Gietl (both ITA) managed to break the Russian´s winning streak. They might find support in Austria´s junior World Champion Melanie Batkowski, who is more than ready for her first World Cup win. Three times she has finished third, three times second, but has not yet celebrated her first victory.

The most balanced and therefore most thrilling event of the last few winters was the doubles contest. Only in the second run of the last race the overall World Cup winner has been determined. Eventually Christian Schatz and Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) were the fastest. They have recovered from their injuries suffered in Canada at the 2007 World Championships and are ready to defend their title.

The rack in Passeier is in perfect shape and ready for the race, so a exciting season opening can be expected when on Friday, 10am the first run of the GERMANPIPE World Cup will be started.