Sensational victory in the Team Relay Event ahead of Whistler World Cup
Whistler (pps) At the season opener of the Viessmann Luge World Cup in Innsbruck-Igls, Austria, Team Canada created quite a sensation by winning the Team Relay Event and thus managed to carry off a strong campaign ahead of the “home” World Cup. The second stop of the Viessmann Luge World Cup series will be carried out on the Olympic track in Whistler on December 9-10.
But not only Canada’s relay team showed a strong performance. In the women’s singles especially World bronze medallist Alex Gough achieved an outstanding result when she finished in third place. Arianne Jones in eighth position and the just 18-year-old Kimberly McRae in twelfth place both posted their career best result. “This is a success for the entire team”, explained head coach Wolfgang Staudinger and warded off any personal congratulations.
For four years now the German-Canadian, whose wife Marie-Claude posted Canada’s best ever result in the Olympic women’s singles when she finished in seventh position at the 1988 Games under her maiden name Doyon, has been responsible of the “fate” of the World Cup squad. Since last year Bernhard Glass works as assistant to the 1988 Olympic bronze medallist, who competed in the doubles together with Germany’s current sports director Thomas Schwab. Glass once worked as coach for the German luge team, too.
Glass, 1980 Olympic champion in the men’s singles, is responsible for Alex Gough’s new luge. Gough sensationally ended the winning series of Germany’s women lugers after 105 victories in Paramonovo, Russia, last winter. In Germany Glass was, among others, responsible for the victories of Silke Kraushaar-Pielach, who took gold at Olympic Games (1998), World (2004) and European Championships (1998, 2004 and 2006). Later, Glass also coached Germany’s Olympic and World champion as well as serial winner Tatjana Huefner.
With former junior World champion Robert Fegg, who is the responsible coach for the young lugers, Canada is also relying on German know-how for junior-level athletes. In order to build long-term success Whistler’s high performance director Walter Corey is creating a special training center for junior-level sliders designed according to German examples. About 600 students are already regularly sliding down the track there.
As soon as in Whistler, however, Canada’s World Cup squad intends to demonstrate again its upward trend. “We are definitely able to repeat our victory in the Team Relay Event in Whistler”, said Tristan Walker in Igls, referring to the “old hands” Alex Gough and Sam Edney. By the way, it was Edney who posted Canada’s best ever result at Olympic Games when he finished in seventh place.
