FIL President Fendt Meeting With Governor Of Sverdlovsk Region

Press Information
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
17th-20th December 2009
Novouralsk/Yekaterinburg (RUS)

FIL President meets Alexander Misharin, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region

A meeting in high political spheres was held in connection with the World Cup in Yekaterinburg. FIL president Josef Fendt met Alexander Misharin, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, who only recently resumed office. "I had the impression that the governor is truly and seriously committed to our sport and that he appreciated our meeting," said Fendt. "He was well informed about the event, he even knew what we discussed in the press conference the day before. He does not only want to support the sport, he wants to expand the existing structures." Last year a sport school with a focus on luge had been opened in Novouralsk, in future a luge center could be established in this city with its long luge tradition.
For Josef Fendt a cycle had been closed with his visit to Novouralsk. When he participated in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games there were rumours about a secret luge track behind the Urals. "Word was that the Russians had copied the Lake Placid track and were training for the Games here. How they got the blue prints or if the story was even true, nobody knew. But I never would have thought that one day I would actually stand here at this track." 1980 the Russian Vera Zuzulia surprisingly won the Olympic gold medal. "Knowing this story, her win was not all that surprising", said Fendt.
As an expression of the good relations between Fendt and the governor, on Saturday the political leader of the 2000km long and 600km wide Sverdlovsk region actually came to visit the World Cup.

Chris Karl

FIL Media Service

Natural Luge in the Olympics?

Fans of Natural Track have had their hopes dashed before but recent news suggests that the FIL hasn't given up on getting the sport in to the Olympics! As recently as the 2005 World Championships in Latsch (ITA) there was still hope the sport would make the cut for the 2010 games in Vancouver.

Thanks to a helpful tip from one of our favourite Hintonites we can pass on that FIL president Josef Fendt has confirmed that the organization is working with the IOC - with the intent of getting the nod to include the sport in the 2018 Olympics:

"Fendt said that the next application will be for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, which will be awarded in 2011. Until then all the tasks requested by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should be implemented."

2018 is a long time away but the the stars might just be aligning to have natural track in an Olympics before then:

"The 2012 Olympic Youth Games have been awarded to Innsbruck. In a mutual effort made by FIL, the Austrian Luge Federation, the luge federation of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, and the organizers of the 2012 Olympic Youth Games, it could be possible to already include natural track luge there."

Ok, ok ... It's not the Olympics but it is an Olympics and that's something fans and athletes should all be happy about. You can read the full story here.