A Track for the Next Generation – Slovakia's Luge Community Needs Our Support
Helcmanovce is a name many in the international luge community will not have heard before. It should be heard now. For 65 years, this small Slovak village has been home to a luge club with an outsized contribution to the sport. A wooden natural track with winter ice operated here from 1976 until the last races were held in 1996. In the years since, young lugers from Helcmanovce have had nowhere to train at home — practising their technique on makeshift forest roads, or travelling to Starý Smokovec for access to a starting ramp. And yet, against these odds, the club has produced Olympians: Veronika Sabolová, who competed at three Winter Games; Viera Gbúrová, who represented Slovakia at Sochi 2014; and other athletes who have carried the Helcmanovce name onto international ice.
This is what grassroots luge looks like in much of the world. Not a purpose-built academy, but a small club, a handful of dedicated coaches, and young athletes who keep showing up despite having almost nothing to train on.
Now, ŠKS Helcmanovce has a genuine opportunity to change that. Following a government resolution, Slovakia's Ministry of Tourism and Sport has agreed to examine funding for a new artificial training track for youth — modelled on the kind of facilities in Germany’s Ilmenau and Zwickau. But before construction funding can be released, the club needs a professional feasibility study, including the precise track geometry, prepared by specialist engineers experienced in Olympic-standard design. The cost of that first step alone is close to €10,000 — a sum the club and municipality cannot cover from their existing budgets without affecting training and competition for their current young athletes.
ŠKS Helcmanovce has launched a fundraising campaign to bridge this gap, and the club's leadership — chairman Ľubomír Kuchár and vice-chairman Rastislav Drajna — has reached out asking for support.
This is precisely the kind of moment where the global luge family can show what it stands for. Our sport is not large in numbers, but it is rich in solidarity. Every artificial track, every well-funded national programme, depends in some way on the same foundation: clubs like ŠKS Helcmanovce, who keep the sport alive in places where it has every reason to disappear. When infrastructure improves anywhere in the world — in a small Slovak village as much as in an Olympic city — the entire sport benefits. New training capacity means new athletes, new competitions, and a deeper, more resilient luge community for everyone.
The FIL encourages national federations, clubs and individual members of the luge community who wish to support this project to consider contributing to the Helcmanovce fundraising campaign.
