Luge Medals for four Nations Whistler (pps) Four nations share the nine Luge medals of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games at Vancouver. With five medals Germany claimed the majority of the awards at the Whistler Sliding Centre, ahead of Austria (2). Latvia and Italia each take one medal home.

Thanks to the Olympic victories of Tatjana Hüfner and Felix Loch the German Federation (BSD – Bob- und Schlittenverband für Deutschland) proved its outstanding position in Luge. In addition to those two Gold medals David Möller (Silver) as well as Natalie Geisenberger (Bronze) and the duo Patric Leitner/Alexander Resch (Bronze) ensured a successful Olympic debut of head coach Norbert Loch. >br>
Andreas Linger/Wolfgang Linger (Gold) and Nina Reithmayer (Silver) showed that Austria’s hard work over the past years under the leadership of President Friedel Ludescher and sports director Markus Prock has paid off. In Austria the Luge Federation is the second most successful federation behind the Ski federation.

Four years ago Martins Rubenis won the first-ever medal for Latvia at Winter Olympics. This year Latvia was even more successful with the Silver medal of Andris Sics/Juris Sics in the Doubles race.

The efforts of the Russian federation do not result in medals yet but a really successful development is already visible. 2010 European Champion and 2006 Olympic Silver medalist Albert Demchenko missed to the podium and turned fourth, but fourth place of the 19-years old reigning European Champion Tatiana Ivanova and a sixth place of Alexandra Rodionova offer hope for the 2014 Winter Games at Sotchi.

The Host nation of the Vancouver Olympic Games did not fulfill the expectations although a seventh place of Sam Edney marked the best male luger’s result in the Olympic history of Canada. Disappointment also marked the performance of the US Luge federation with Tony Benshoof taking eighth place in the Men’s race and Christian Niccum/Daniel Joye turning sixth in the Doubles‘ competition.

During the ten Olympic competition runs only one crash was recorded, it did not result in a serious injury. With 12,000 spectators each the five days of Luge competition at the Whistler Slding Centre were sold out.

With the 2009/10 luge season now having concluded with the Olympic competitions, the FIL will re-examine all the information gathered in order to determine how to best move forward. The FIL anticipates it will be able to share its conclusions with the public at the end of March.