Cesana Pariol (pps) All medal winners of the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games will be present when the 30th World Cup season will be opened on the Olympic track at Cesana Pariol next weekend (November 18-19, 2006). Exactly 276 days after the last Olympic competition, especially gold medal winners Sylke Otto (Germany), Armin Zoeggeler (Italy) and Wolfgang Linger-Andreas Linger (Austria) will have to give evidence of their skills again.

„I’m relaxed as never before“, Sylke Otto said. This is “definitely” her last season and she wants to fully concentrate on the World Championships in Igls. “Of course it’s nice to be overall World Cup champion, but what I really want is to become World champion again. I have achieved my first World Cup victory in Igls and it would be great to end my career there.” Together with her team colleagues Silke Kraushaar-Pielach (1998 Olympic champion, 2002 Olympic bronze and 2006 Olympic silver medallist) and 2006 Olympic bronze medallist Tatjana Huefner, 37-year-old Otto wants to continue the series, started in November 1997, of 64 successive german victories in the Viessmann World Cup. Austria’s Veronika Halder and Nina Reithmeyer, who will not compete at the World Cup opener in Cesana Pariol due to an injury of the ankle joint, as well as US American Courtney Zablocki will be trying to thwart these plans of Germany’s women lugers.

Armin Zoeggeler wants to set new records – the luger from South Tyrol has achieved 30 individual World Cup victories and has thus almost drawn level with record winners Markus Prock (Austria) and Georg Hackl (Germany), each boasting 33 victories. “Of course this is a goal”, Armin Zoeggeler explains, but at the age of 32 he is “deciding after each season”. Zoeggeler further comments: “This is why I don’t know yet if I will compete at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver”. Zoeggeler has numerous competitiors, for instance Olympic silver medallist Albert Demchenko from Russia, Latvia’s Olympic bronze medallist Martins Rubenis, US American Tony Benshoof who achieved a fourth place at the Olympic Games or 2004 World Champion David Moeller (Germany).

Even without the participation of Germany’s Georg Hackl, FIL President Josef Fendt is not worrying about the future in the sport of luge. “Of course we will be missing athletes such as Georg Hackl or Markus Prock. But we should not forget that lugers such as Armin Zoeggeler, Tony Benshoof and Albert Demchenko are still fighting for medals and titles. I hope that there will be athletes who can establish themselves and who can awake the public interest. I believe that David Moeller could indeed become such a personality”, Josef Fendt explained.