Latest news with #InternationalLugeFederation
CBC
01-04-2025
- Sport
- CBC
Olympic CEO has 'absolutely no doubt' that sliding events will be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo
With the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics less than a year away, organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier said he has "absolutely no doubt" that sliding sports will be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, after testing went well last week. There was concern that the venue for bobsled, luge and skeleton might not be ready in time for next February's Games. The International Olympic Committee even demanded a Plan B option that could have the events moved to Lake Placid, New York, if things fell apart. The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation said last week's testing period at the track was "successful." Now, Varnier is confident about the pace rebuilding the century-old sliding centre is on. "We were always very optimistic, but until the pre-homologation (testing) of course, there were a lot of doubts around us," he said. "But we were confident, and we're very happy now." Officials from the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, International Luge Federation and the International Olympic Committee will determine whether the track receives official preliminary certification. Last week's events were enough to leave Varnier in good spirits. Completion is scheduled for Nov. 5, then there would be homologation and handover to Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 to hold the Games. Before the Olympics, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation and International Luge Federation are set to use the new track for international training and test events. Varnier said it is important that the sliding sports be held in Cortina to improve the experience for those involved. "Very happy because that would be ideal for the athletes to be all together, to stay together in Cortina," he said. "Will be ideal for the spectators who will have a more truly Olympic experience in Cortina, and also for for the media and all the operators that — it would have been very difficult to follow those sliding sports somewhere else in the world."
Associated Press
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Olympic CEO has ‘absolutely no doubt' that sliding events will be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo
With the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics less than a year away, organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier said he has 'absolutely no doubt' that sliding sports will be held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, after testing went well last week. There was concern that the venue for bobsled, luge and skeleton might not be ready in time for next February's Games. The International Olympic Committee even demanded a Plan B option that could have the events moved to Lake Placid, New York, if things fell apart. The International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation said last week's testing period at the track was 'successful.' Now, Varnier is confident about the pace rebuilding the century-old sliding center is on. 'We were always very optimistic, but until the pre-homologation (testing) of course, there were a lot of doubts around us,' he said. 'But we were confident, and we're very happy now.' Officials from the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, International Luge Federation and the International Olympic Committee will determine whether the track receives official preliminary certification. Last week's events were enough to leave Varnier in good spirits. Completion is scheduled for Nov. 5, then there would be homologation and handover to Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 to hold the Games. Before the Olympics, the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation and International Luge Federation are set to use the new track for international training and test events. Varnier said it is important that the sliding sports be held in Cortina to improve the experience for those involved. 'Very happy because that would be ideal for the athletes to be all together, to stay together in Cortina,' he said. 'Will be ideal for the spectators who will have a more truly Olympic experience in Cortina, and also for for the media and all the operators that -- it would have been very difficult to follow those sliding sports somewhere else in the world.' ___
Associated Press
29-03-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Luge officials predict 2026 Olympic sliding races will be in Italy, a good sign for Milan-Cortina
Next year's Olympic sliding races will be in Italy after all, international luge officials predicted Saturday in another ringing endorsement of the newly rebuilt track in Cortina d'Ampezzo. The International Luge Federation followed its bobsled and skeleton counterpart in declaring the testing of the track that Italy hopes to use at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics a success. That's another sign that the sliding community fully expects the Olympic races to be in the Italian Alps and not at the Plan B site in Lake Placid, New York, next winter. 'See you in Cortina in February of 2026,' FIL general secretary Dwight Bell, the former longtime USA Luge president, said in a statement released by the international federation. That's not an official announcement; one of those will likely come from the International Olympic Committee. But the luge community's backing, combined with rave reviews that came from the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation on Friday, almost certainly means sliding events will be in Italy — essentially ending plenty of doubt about whether an ambitious construction project to restore the historic Eugenio Monti track would be done in time for the Olympics. 'We are extremely satisfied with the testing conducted on the luge track in Cortina,' said Claire delNegro, the FIL's vice president for sport. 'Testing was done with athletes and coaches representing 11 countries from Europe, Asia and North America over 178 runs. The track was well prepared and improved daily so that final speeds achieved to date were aligned with design specifications.' About 60 athletes from around the world — roughly half of them Italian — took part in the bobsled, skeleton and luge runs over the last week. There is still much to do at the Cortina track, including building a roof and continuing to prepare the site for thousands of visitors during the 2025-26 sliding season. Various construction projects there are scheduled through Nov. 5, and Italian officials say they believe that target is doable. 'It's incredible what the Italians have achieved here in such a short space of time, at a level that is second to none,' world men's luge champion Max Langenhan of Germany said. 'I would never have thought that. I arrived with rather low expectations because there was so much going on around it. But when you see the energy here — they really do everything for it, and you can probably expect this spirit at the Olympic Games. It's fantastic.' Luge athletes are scheduled to have an international training period at the new track from Oct. 27 through Nov. 2, then return for a test event there in the final week of November. The bobsled and skeleton tours will hold their international training period from Nov. 7-16, followed by the season-opening World Cup races there from Nov. 17-23. The 1.749-kilometer (1.09-mile) Cortina track features 16 curves with an estimated top speed of 145 kph (90 mph) and with run times slated for 55-60 seconds. The Olympic Regional Development Authority, a state agency in New York that oversees Lake Placid's Olympic facilities — including the Mount Van Hoevenberg sliding complex — is going forward with major upgrades to refrigeration systems and other improvements this year anyway, and planned to whether or not the Olympic sliding races were coming to the Adirondacks. The final runs of the season on the track in Lake Placid were being taken this weekend, and construction has already started at the facility. ___
Reuters
28-03-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Italy's new sliding centre for 2026 Games passes initial tests
March 28 (Reuters) - The new 'Eugenio Monti' sliding centre for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics has successfully completed its initial tests for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions. Track experts from the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation and International Luge Federation as well as coaches, assessed its compliance with international racing standards. In the initial, or 'pre-homologation', test runs, 60 athletes from 12 nations tested the 1,730-metre track - a redesign of the 1920s original with 16 curves. "It's just fantastic to see the track in such good shape," IBSF President Ivo Ferriani said in a statement on Friday. "We all know that the time frame for the reconstruction was very tight and ambitious. "The feedback we have received from our technical experts, the coaches and athletes on site this week has been very positive," he added. Italian skeleton athlete Mattia Gaspari, a Cortina native, was the first to test the track after its inauguration on Tuesday. Athletes from Team USA, including five-times world champion and Olympic medallist Kaillie Humphries, also tried it. The completion of the roof and ancillary installations is scheduled for November, before final tests before it is handed over to the organisers of the February 6-22 Games. Lake Placid in the U.S. has been chosen as Plan B for next year in case something happens to the schedule of the sliding centre project, although the International Olympic Committee said in January that it will be finished on time.
CBC
20-03-2025
- Sport
- CBC
60 athletes to test Cortina's controversial Olympic sliding track next week
The track's essential structure is done. The ice is being prepared. And next week, 60 athletes are slated to test the controversial sliding centre for next year's Milan-Cortina Olympics. "The track's structure is done. We had it in our calendars to finish by March 16 and that's when it was finished," Fabio Saldini, the government commissioner in charge of rebuilding the century-old track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Construction workers celebrated Sunday's milestone by laying down a branch of an evergreen tree across the track. "The tree branch represents a starting point, like when [bobsled] teams get ready to push off before launching themselves down the track," said Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region that includes Cortina. "I hope that the enthusiasm builds minute by minute in a crescendo worthy of an event of this magnitude." Twenty workers preparing ice on the track day and night are slated to finish by Sunday. Then starting on Monday, bobsled, luge and skeleton athletes will perform test runs in order to secure preliminary certification, homologation is the technical word, for the track. Also coming are 26 coaches, plus officials from the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, International Luge Federation, and the International Olympic Committee. Even preliminary approval would go a long way toward avoiding a backup Plan B option the IOC had demanded and which would require moving the three sliding sports all the way to Lake Placid, N.Y., if the track in Italy wasn't finished in time. "As of today, 50 per cent of the ice is ready," Saldini said. "We had some trouble last week due to high temperatures, rain and snow. But then we covered the track with nets and yesterday we actually put down too much ice." Security has been increased around the track since a refrigeration tube was removed and placed across a road in a reported act of sabotage last month, according to the government agency, Simico. Besides the sliding events, Cortina will also host women's alpine skiing and curling during the Winter Games. Pre-fabricated mobile homes that will host up to 1,400 athletes in an athletes' village in Cortina are being put in place this month. The mobile homes will also be used for athletes during the Paralympics.
