Olang (ck) The cold spell came just in time for the beginning of the luge season on natural track. Two days before the first training run, World Cup coordinator Herbert Wurzer could give its OK for the first World Cup competition in Olang in the "Pustertal“region: "The track is ready for use and the races can be staged as scheduled.
The first race of this winter season will be held as an evening competition. As one of the first tracks being equipped with floodlights, Olang paved the way for evening runs during the 2000 World Championships. Since that time, evening competitions are enjoying more and more popularity.
Thus, the training runs will be staged on Thursday and Friday evening and the race runs on Friday (after training) and on Saturday evening.

At present, the event organizers of the second competition of this season in Triesenberg in Liechtenstein still have some problems with the track. Because of the springlike temperatures during the past few weeks, winter has not really arrived yet.

Totally in contrast, Canada, which will be hosting the 3rd World Cup is experiencing temperatures of minus 25 degrees celsius. There won’t be any big New Year’s Eve celebrations this year for the luge athletes as the whole World Cup retinue will fly to Canada on New Year’s Day.
Grande Prairie, about three to four hours drive north-east of Edmonton, will be the competition venue of the RED BULL World Cup. There, hibernating bears are a bigger problem than perhaps the lack of snow. However, in order to drive away uninvited guests from the area of the luge track, a working group is already searching for bears.