Altenberg (pps) With a victory in the first of altogether five events of the Tiscover Team Relay, Team Canada revealed a glimpse of its skills and thus raised hope for successful Olympic Games back home in Vancouver (February 12-28, 2010). It was Canada’s first success in the Tiscover Team Relay with starters Sam Edney, Alex Gough and Chris Moffat-Mike Moffat. In the then traditional team event three years ago, Canada had achieved a second and third place.
“The upward trend is unmistakable”, explained Wolfgang Staudinger of Germany, head coach of Team Canada. Staudinger, whose contract runs through 2014, added: “If they happen to show a good and clean run my team will be able to cause a stir.” At the second leg of the Tiscover Team Relay next Sunday (December 6 at 13:00 hrs) Team Canada hopes to demonstrate that their victory on the 1976 Olympic luge track has not been a flash in the plan. The luge federation is profiting from Canada’s government-backed “Own the Podium” program as well as from its first title sponsor (“Fast Track”) who signed a five-year contract running through 2014.
Especially Sam Edney showed an impressive performance in Innsbruck-Igls – thanks to the good work of Staudinger and his two German assistant coaches Robert Fegg (1997 junior World champion, 4th at the 1999 Worlds and 5th at the 2002 Worlds) and Steffen Skel (2000-2001 overall Viessmann World Cup winner; 2000 and 2001 World runner-up / together with Steffen Woeller in the double-seater). One week after his fifth place in Calgary – his best ever World Cup result –25-year old Edney again excelled with the best running time in the men’s singles of the team relay. Furthermore he achieved the best running time in the second run of the World Cup.
Sam would have been among the top lugers in the first run, too. But the luge was then set-up differently,” Staudinger explained, who earned the 1988 Olympic bronze medal in the double-seater together with Thomas Schwab, today Secretary General and sports director of the German federation. Sam Edney added: “But now I know that I can keep up with the world’s top lugers – provided I’ll have two clean runs.”
The unmistakable upward trend of Team Canada on the artificially-iced track was also documented by the good performance of Alex Gough who achieved a fourth place in the women’s singles in Innsbruck-Igls. “We are all surprised by Alex’ development. During the summer training sessions she showed an unbelievable ambition and consistence. She trained really hard,” Staudinger further related. Already last year the 22-year old caused quite a stir when she earned a fourth place at the World Championships in Lake Placid, USA.
“It’s surely only a question of time until we’ll be able to have a say when the medals are handed out.” This is Staudinger’s conclusion after the World Cup stop-over in Innsbruck-Igls. But he also added: “Of course we need to continue our hard work and we need to believe in ourselves.” So far team Canada only scored one podium finish at Olympic Games or World Championships – thanks to Miroslav Zajonc, born in Czechoslovakia, who earned a gold medal at the 1983 Worlds in Lake Placid.
