Pre-season preparation Team China in the Corona crisis: "Chance to catch up athletically and technically!“

Triesenberg (FIL) The head coach of the Chinese luge team Wolfgang Schädler is currently still at home in Liechtenstein. There he works on the sleds of his athletes and receives videos from China of the start training to check and correct the technique. Fellow coaches Norbert Huber (Italy) and Tony Benshoof (USA) are also unable to travel to China to join their team at the moment. The young women and men of the team are working with the Chinese athletics coach and assistant coach Kan under the guidance of the three experienced international coaches.

Wolfgang Schädler remembers: “This has been a crazy year so far. We were at the training camp in Lillehammer mid-February and early March and wanted to travel on to Sigulda. Then the recall of the athletes to China came. They should travel home immediately, as the wave of Covid infections in Europe was in a rapid upswing, while the situation in China had calmed down. We cancelled Sigulda and on March 8, we all went home. For Norbert and me, it worked just one day before the border to Italy was closed.” The team had to be quarantined immediately upon arrival in China. 

Wolfi Schädler explains: “In China, the handling of the virus situation is very strict. Individual provinces are very careful. Since it was very difficult to enter different provinces in China due to the current security measures and the athletes come from different provinces, the decision was made not to go home, so they went to the training camp together right away. Since then, the Chinese luge team has been training with about 25 athletes and two co-trainers at the training center in Xian. There the provincial government has built a start facility for us and the training conditions are excellent.”

Wolfgang Schädler continues: “As Europeans and also North Americans, it is difficult to imagine that. All of them have not been home since autumn 2019 - excluding 5 days at Christmas. They have trained continuously without any external contact. A training camp by the sea was planned, but of course none of that is possible at the moment due to travel restrictions. I see this as a chance for our team, to improve athletically and start technically, because of the relatively short time in the sport we do have a lot to catch up in these areas. Our young athletes are highly motivated!”

But what's next? What will the next luge season be like? Even Wolfgang Schädler does not know: “You have to be flexible, there is no way to know what is yet to come. In any case, we three international coaches will be able to travel to China again at the latest by the end of September. The visa is being processed and the first runs on the new Olympic track in Beijing are planned for October. I assume that the pre-homologation will take place. I’d be surprised by everything else. How things will go on then, we will have to wait and see!”