There will be a few firsts when the PEWO Luge World Cup on natural track will have its season opening race next weekend. St. Sebastian will host a World Cup race for the first time. They held the 2007 Junior European Championships though and did a great job two years ago. With the cold temperatures in Austria these days, there should be excellent racing conditions.
Another first is that the overall winners of last year´s IC-Cup ranking will have a guaranteed spot in the World Cup opening race additionally to the usual six men, four women and four doubles per nations. This new rule only applies to the first race, after this the IC winners will have to go through the usual national qualification.
Last not least it will also be the first time that athletes from Korea will participate in the World Cup. They have already arrived in Europe and are practicing in St. Sebastian under the experienced eyes of FIL coach Karl Flacher. Korea has been the seventh nation to join Flacher´s training group. So far he has been working with athletes from Canada, Ukraine, Bosnia, Great Britain, Romania and Bulgaria. Even though many of these athletes managed to minimize the gap between themselves and the world´s best, the usual names will be seen on top of the podium.
Ekatherina Lavrentjeva (RUS) has been dominating the scene over the past three seasons. Austria´s Melanie Batkowski might be ready for her first World Cup win, though. In her still young career she has won all titles and achieved ten podium results in the World Cup, but never at the top spot. Patrick Pigneter (ITA) will once again be the hunted. Only three times he was beaten in all the singleseater races of two seasons. In the doubleseater event he broke all records when he and his partner Florian Clara managed to win all races in one season.
The World Cup opening will show who the challengers – most likely they will come from Italy and Austria - will be and whether the one or the other new name can proceed to the podium.
Training runs will start Friday at 9am, the first competition run will be held on Saturday at 9.30am.
Programme:
Thursday, 08. 01. 2009:
8pm: Team Captain´s meeting
Friday, 09. 01. 2009:
9am: 1st training run men and women
1.30pm: 1st training run doubles
2.30pm: 2nd training run doubles
Team Captain´s meeting
7pm: Opening Ceremony „Europeum“ in Mariazell
Saturday , 10. 01. 2009:
9am: 2nd training run women
afterwards (appr. 9.30am): 1st competition run doubles
11am: 1st competition run women and 2nd competition run doubles
afterwards Flower Ceremony and Medal Ceremony doubleseaters
2pm: 2nd training run men
Team Captain´s meeting
7pm: „50 Years Sports Club St. Sebastian” and World Cup party
Sunday, 11. 01. 2009
10am: 1st competition run men and 2nd competition run women
12pm: 2nd competition run men
afterwards Flower Ceremony
2pm: Medal Ceremony for men and women
