Whistler (pps) Team Canada will not participate in the Viessmann Luge World Cup event on the 1994 Olympic track in Lillehammer, Norway, next weekend (December 12-13, 2009). Instead of a start at the fourth event of the luge World Cup series, Canada's head coach Wolfgang Staudinger (Germany) prefers training sessions on the future Olympic track in Whistler for his protégés, with the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver (February 12-28, 2010) in mind. Additionally, the national Canadian Championships will be carried out in the "Whistler Sliding Center" on December 17.

Canada's luge team accomplished to create quite some interest in the - not yet Olympic - Tiscover Team Relay event. The Staudinger protégés celebrated a victory in Innsbruck-Igls and then finished on third place in Altenberg. Additionally, Sam Edney showed a convincing performance in the men's singles, taking eighth place in Altenberg. Moreover Alex Gough, World Championship fourth-placed, achieved a 12th place in the women's singles thanks to the seventh-best time in the second run.