Koenigssee (pps) Jubilee at Koenigssee: The oldest artificially refrigerated track will host a
Viessmann Luge World Cup for the 25 th time on the coming weekend (January 5-7). The tube at
the foot of Watzmann Mountain is now the record venue. No other track has hosted more
Viessmann Luge World Cup events. However, the weekend after Koenigssee the Austrian track
at Innsbruck-Igls (January 13-15) will equal that record. Germany’s Silke Kraushaar, Russia’s
Albert Demchenko and Italy’s doubles Christian Oberstolz-Patrick Gruber are the current leaders
in the Viessmann Luge World Cup.
Silke Kraushaar, the 1998 Olympic champion, has a comfortable lead of 100 points with 455
points towards her German team-mates Sylke Otto (355) and Tatjana Huefner (309). In addition
to this trio, fellow-German Barbara Niedernhuber, the 1998 and 2002 Olympic silver medallist as
well as the 2005 Viessmann Luge World Cup title holder, will try to use her last chance for a ticket
to the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. The following week at Igls, World bronze medallist Anke
Wischnewski will have a new chance in the German team. According to the Bobsleigh and Luge
Federation for Germany, BSD, two of the three Olympic tickets have already been given to Silke
Kraushaar and Sylke Otto.
The 2002 Olympic doubles champions Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch have also booked
their tickets for Torino. The Germans are currently in second position with 366 points behind
Italy’s Oberstolz-Gruber (385). On their home-track, the three-time World champions are striving
for their third victory this season, their third successive win at Koenigssee and their altogether
23 rd World Cup victory. “That’s our home-track, it suits us and we usually do well here”, Patric
Leitner says.
The “Kitzbuehel of the lugers“, as Germany’s three-time Olympic champion Georg Hackl usually
calls his home-track at Koenigssee, an allusion to the Mecca of the Alpine skiers in Austria. The
most successful luger of all times gained five of his altogether 33 Viessmann Luge World Cup
victories on his home-track. After his sporadic participation in the World Cup competitions before
Christmas finishing seventh (Torino) and second (Calgary), Hackl now wants to compete in all
events in the new year.
In the previous Viessmann Luge World Cup events in Sigulda/Latvia, Cesana-Torino/Italy,
Altenberg/Germany, Calgary/Canada and Lake Placid/USA, Russian title holder Albert
Demchenko and Italian 2002 Olympic champion Armin Zoeggeler proved to compete in a class of
their own with two wins each. Demchenko is on the road to successfully defend his title, heading
the overall rankings with 410 points, followed by Zoeggeler (344), US American Tony Benshoof
(325) and German World bronze medallist David Moeller (296).