Lugers get first racing taste of Cortina track

LONDON :After bobsleigh and skeleton hit Cortina d'Ampezzo last week, luge - the feet-first one - gets its first live taste of the new track this weekend via a test event for February's Winter Olympics that doubles up as the sport's World Cup opener.

The season had been due to start in Innsbruck, Austria, two weeks ago, but issues with the track led to a cancellation - the races being shifted to the German resort of Winterberg on December 5-7.

As a result, this weekend's test event has been upgraded to a World Cup event, with Olympic qualification points up for grabs at the newly built Eugenio Monti track named after Italy's most decorated bobsleigh athlete.

Last year there were fears that the sliding events would have to be shifted to Lake Placid in the United States after work to build the new facility, on the site of the demolished 100-year-old original track that closed in 2008, fell behind.

However, everything was passed off early in 2025 and now the talk is not of "will it be ready" but "how is it to race on?"

As ever, Germany is expected to be the dominant nation at the Olympics, having, in its various guises, taken a remarkable 38 of the 52 available luge golds since the sport joined in 1964, including 11 of the last 12.

Next year there will be five to shoot for, with the introduction of women's doubles, and among the favourites to keep the medals rolling will be double overall World Cup winner and triple 2025 world champion Max Langenhan.

"Everyone will love the whole setting with the mountains around it and it's great to have a new track," Langenhan told the International Luge Federation.

"It's too early to say definitively whether the track suits me but what we've seen so far promises a lot of excitement because it's