Sigulda (pps) The road to Torino begins at Sigulda. There will be seven World Cup events (Torino, Altenberg, Calgary, Lake Placid, Koenigssee, Igls, Oberhof) between the Viessmann Luge World Cup opener in Latvia on the coming weekend (November 5-6) and the XXth Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy (February 10-26, 2006) plus the European Championships at Winterberg, Germany (January 20-22, 2006) and a small jubilee. Viessmann has been supporting the Luge World Cup as title and main sponsor for now ten years.

The 110 starting places for Torino will exclusively be determined in the Viessmann Luge World Cup, again broadcast live and extensively this winter on Eurosport and in Germany on the two public TV channels, ARD and ZDF. Only the best 40 men, the best 30 women and the best 20 doubles on the overall rankings (deadline: December 31, 2005) assure the Olympic ticket of the International Luge Federation, FIL. It must also be taken into account that the starting places are limited to three men and women each and two doubles per nation, and of course the qualifying criteria of the respective National Olympic Committees.

These facts guarantee a lot of excitement in the 2005-06 Viessmann Luge World Cup with more than 25 nations regularly participating in the past few years. Overall title holders are Germany’s Barbara Niedernhuber, Russia’s Albert Demchenko and Italy’s Christian Oberstolz-Patrick Gruber at the opener at Sigulda, Latvia, on November 5-6.

Though the German women around overall World Cup champion Barbara Niedernhuber and the Olympic champions Sylke Otto (2002) and Silke Kraushaar (1998) have remained undefeated in 56 successive World Cup events since November 1997, they were no longer unthreatened last year: Natalia Yakushenko of the Ukraine won the 2004-05 Suzuki Challenge Cup; Canada’s Regan Lauscher achieved the best ever Canadian World Cup result when she finished runner-up at Lake Placid, and US American Ashley Hayden made the podium for the first time at Winterberg 2005 getting bronze. Further medal contenders for the coming season are Italy’s Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova and Austrians Nina Reithmayer, Veronika Halder and Sonja Manzenreiter.

The red-white-red Austrian team have a new German coach, Rene Friedl, and are hoping for new impetus in the men’s event with former overall World Cup champion Markus Kleinheinz. Gold medal contenders are Italy’s record World champion Armin Zoeggeler, who wants to repeat his Olympic victory of Salt Lake City at Cesana Pariol; Germany’s three-time Olympic champion Georg Hackl who is striving for his sixth Olympic participation; and his German team-mate, World bronze medallist David Moeller, who is dreaming of his first Olympic medal.

There is a question mark behind Russia’s World Cup title holder Albert Demchenko after life-threatening complications after an appendectomy. Hackl is still suffering from cervical vertebra surgery and will make his World Cup debut this season in Calgary.

The extended world’s top in the doubles consists of competitors from Germany, Italy, Austria, the USA, Canada and even Slovakia. At nine 2004-05 World Cup events no fewer than six doubles from four different countries were the winners. The favourites are Germany’s 2002 Olympic champions Patric Leitner-Alexander Resch, Germany’s reigning World champions André Florschuetz-Torsten Wustlich, the 1998 Olympic bronze and 2002 silver medallists, US Americans Mark Grimmette-Brian Martin, and Italy’s Oberstolz-Gruber. Further medal contenders are Austria’s Tobias Schiegl-Markus Schiegl and Wolfgang Linger-Andreas Linger as well as Canada’s Grant Albrecht-Eric Pothier.