La Plagne (RWH) The bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track in La Plagne, France, was built for the Albertville Winter Olympics and hosted its most prestigious event over 20 years ago, when the Olympic sliding competitions were held in February 1992. Yet the fifth round in the Viessmann FIBT Bob & Skeleton World Cup Tour 2012/2013 being held this weekend (14-16 December) in the province of Savoy is only the second time in the history of the ice track that a joint bobsleigh and skeleton World Cup has been seen here.
The last World Cup organised by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation FIBT (Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobgganing) on France’s first and only artificial ice track took place in December 2011 after a nine-year absence of the venue from the FIBT World Cup agenda. The last World Cup races before that were the two-man and four-man bobsleigh in December 2002, a time when the men’s and women’s bobsleigh and skeleton competitions were held separately. The joint World Cup tour of FIBT’s athletes was introduced in the 2006/2007 season.
You might not know that the passion for bobsleigh in La Plagne has a long tradition. Before the artificial track was built, the Mâcot-la-Plagne bobsleigh club held its competitions on the access road to the old mine above the town. But the honour of hosting an Olympics has only been granted to to La Plagne once so far. When Annecy bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, it also planned to hold the bobsleigh, skeleton and luge competitions on the 1,507m track in the French Alps, but the bid went to Pyeongchang in South Korea in the summer of 2011.
As we move towards the last World Cup of the year 2012, the current leaders in the overall rankings are Martins Dukurs of Latvia in the men’s skeleton, Marion Thees of Germany in the women’s skeleton, Steven Holcomb of the USA in the two-man bobsleigh, Kaillie Humphries of Canada in the women’s bobsleigh and Alexsandr Zubkov of Russia in the four-man bobsleigh. All of the leading athletes will be competing in La Plagne.
For more information contact: Wolfgang Harder
Tel.: (+49) 173 - 60 733 52 Tel.: +49 171 358 2990
eMail: wolfgang.harder@t-online.de
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