For now only as a test event, the World Cup opener in Latzfons (ITA) will be held in a new format. Only the best 25 men, 15 women and ten doubles will be allowed to participate in the World Cup. All other athletes will compete in a separate race, the Nations Cup. The second training run, which will be held on Friday, January 6th, will be the qualifier for the World Cup. Pre-qualified for the World Cup is the so called “seeded group” which will be generated by the last three races. In the case of Latzfons the last three world cup races of last winter will be counted. This means that in the men’s event six-times overall World Cup winner Patrick Pigneter (ITA), four-times overall World Cup winner Anton Blasbichler (ITA), the two shooting stars of the last season, Rudi Resch and Alex Gruber (both ITA) and Austria’s Thomas Schopf will be pre-qualified. For the women’s event the seeded group is equal with the group of women who traditionally share the podium: Ekatharina Lavrentjeva (RUS), Renate Gietl (ITA) and Melanie Batkowski (AUT). In the doubleseater’s event Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA), Christian Schatz/Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) and Pavel Porshnev/ Ivan Lazarev (RUS) will be seeded. The test event will be witnessed by the president of the International Luge Federation (FIL), Josef Fendt, personally. In the season’s kick off press conference Fendt declared natural track luge as a priority matter: “We are not happy with the developments in the last years and testing new formats will be only one of the initiatives we have planned. After the season we will see which formats worked well and therefore we will keep in the program.” With increased TV times, more attractive race weekends, clearly targeted and future oriented support for national federations and the implementation of a FIL internal work group for natural track the sport should be revived. Kick off for the 20th world cup season will be on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 10am with the first training runs. Track Info „Lahnwiese“ Length: 908 m Start Elevation: 1665 m Finish Elevation: 1549 m Elevation Difference: 116 m Maximum Descent: 20% Minimum Descent: 3% Average Descent: 12,78% Program in Latzfons: Friday, 06.01.2012 10.00am: 1st Training runs men, women and doubles 12.15pm: 2nd Training run women and doubles = Qualification for World Cup 6.45pm: Opening Ceremony Saturday, 07.01.2012 10.00am: 2nd training run men = Qualification for World Cup 12.00pm: 1st World Cup competition run doubles afterwards: Nations Cup doubles (one run) and women (one run) afterwards: 1st World Cup competition run women afterwards: 2nd World Cup competition run doubles Flower ceremony doubles Medal ceremonies Nations Cup doubles and women Sunday, 08.01.2012 10.00am: 1st World Cup competition run men afterwards: Nations Cup men (one run) afterwards: : 2nd World Cup competition run women Flower ceremony women 12.00pm: 2nd World Cup competition run men Flower ceremony men afterwards: medal ceremonies Nations Cup men, World Cup men and World Cup women