PARK CITY, Utah --- The world’s top sliders are taking a break this week from the luge World Cup series to be in Park City, Utah to prepare for February’s Winter Games. The International Training Week is meant to give athletes one last formal opportunity to be on the 2002 Olympic track before official Olympic training begins Feb. 6.
The international field has four runs each day to learn the nuances of the1316-meter long track. „Despite what many say this is not an easy track, there are many difficult sections, including curve two. I still don’t have the track in my mind, it’s going to take many more runs for that to happen,“ said three-time Olympic Champion Georg Hackl, of Germany. „I’m using this week to concentrate on the track and learn as much as I can, but I will also make small adjustments to my sled that I may use during the Games.
„As I said, like many, I`m doing a lot of learning this week.“ Hackl’s fastest training run Monday evening was clocked at 46.289 seconds.

This is also an important week for the U.S. squad. Although the American team has been training on the Olympic track since it first opened in 1997, they’re using the week to watch what the other sliders are doing and to do some fine tuning themselves. „We know the track, and the track is build really nice this week, so for Clay (Ives) and I, this is our last chance to get our sled set up correctly. We’re taking this week to test new elements on the sled, and we’re driving so well that the both of us are capable of figuring out what works and what doesn’t,“ noted Chris Thorpe (Marquette, Mich.), a three-time Olympian and 1998 Olympic doubles luge silver medallist.
The International Training Week concludes on Saturday, and World Cup series resumes next week in Lake Placid, N.Y. Competition begins Friday, Nov. 23, with the women’s singles first heat beginning at 2 p.m.
In the series-opening race, last week in Calgary, Canada, Hackl raced to the men’s singles title, while fellow Germans Sylke Otto and the duo of Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch won the women’s singles and doubles’ events, respectively.
Mark Grimmette (Muskegon, Mich.) and Brian Martin (Palo Alto, Calif.), the 1998 Olympic bronze medallists, posted the top U.S. result, a bronze medal finish, in the doubles’ event, while Becky Wilczak (River Forest, Ill.), a 2001 World Championship bronze medallist, finished a team-high fourth in the women’s singles race. Tony Benshoof (White Bear Lake, Minn.) posted the top American men’s singles finish. The 2001 World Championship bronze medallist finished sixth.