Berchtesgaden (pps) The Viessmann Luge World Cup whose title sponsor has proved a reliable partner of the International Luge Federation FIL for the past ten years, will commence the new season on the coming weekend on the Olympic track at Park City, Utah, without Austria’s series winner Markus Prock. After almost two decades among the World’s top, at least as many medals at Olympic Games, World and European championships and ten overall World Cup victories (most recently in the 2001-2002 Olympic winter), the 2002 Olympic bronze medallist and 19987 and 1996 World champion has finally retired last summer.
While the men are looking for a successor to one of the most outstanding personalities
in luge, the German women are considered the top favourites at the beginning of the Viessmann Luge World Cup. The German women with Olympic champion Sylke Otto, World Cup defender and Olympic bronze medallist Silke Kraushaar and Olympic runner-up Barbara Niedernhuber have remained undefeated in exactly 54 events at Olympic Games, World and European championships, in the Viessmann Luge World Cup and Krombacher Challenge Cup.
An end of their winning series in the Viessmann Luge World Cup which started in November 1987 – the last to beat the German women was Austria’s Andrea Tagwerker at Koenigssee – is not anticipated. Especially as their toughest competitors, Austria’s Angelika Neuner (fourth at the Olympics and in the World Cup) and US American Becky Wilczak (fifth at the Olympics and the World Cup) will not compete in the post-Olympic winter. While Angelika Neuner, the 1992 Olympic silver and 1998 bronze medallist, has retired, Becky Wilczak will concentrate on her professional career, but might be back next season.
In the doubles, the US Americans Chris Thorpe and Clay Ives will be missing. Both have retired after winning Olympic bronze. But the hosts have good chances for an “Olympic revenge” with the two-time Olympic silver medallists, Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin (1998 and 2002). To achieve the victory, however, they will have to beat the German doubles led by the Olympic and European champions as well as World Cup title holders, Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch.

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