Luge 2019 - 2020 Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 15,135]

Should have done it a bit earlier, but Josef Fendt will retire.

https://www.fil-luge.org/en/news/fil-president-josef-fendt-announces-retirement-for-june-2020

[phelps 7,670]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

Should have done it a bit earlier, but Josef Fendt will retire.

https://www.fil-luge.org/en/news/fil-president-josef-fendt-announces-retirement-for-june-2020

 

my 2 cents about what the new president/board should do...

 

a) officially establish the principle that no more than 1 event between world cup stages and world championships can be held in 1 Country each season...

b) close down Winterberg and at least 1 more track between Oberhof and/or Altenberg in Germany for international activity (if they only keep Koenigssee as the "National Track for international events" I'm more than happy)...

c) establish only English as the language of Luge...

d) keep up with their excellent streaming service (and why not? even improve the picture quality), but move it from the internal player of their website to an "open" platform/app like Youtube or Dailymotion or similar one, available on most (if not all) connected device like smart tv and/or android tv/android boxes/apple tv...

e) enforce the attention to the Natural Track Luge by making it Olympic in all the 4 events and organizing the same Live Timing and Live/Ondemand streaming service already in place for the Artificial Track Luge...

f) pushing for more "diversity", trying everything they can to enlarge the number of competitive Countries in both the ATL and NTL (I know...this is the most difficult task, but they really have to try and find the way to improve this aspect of the sport)...

[heywoodu 15,135]

5 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

my 2 cents about what the new president/board should do...

 

a) officially establish the principle that no more than 1 event between world cup stages and world championships can be held in 1 Country each season...

b) close down Winterberg and at least 1 more track between Oberhof and/or Altenberg in Germany for international activity (if they only keep Koenigssee as the "National Track for international events" I'm more than happy)...

c) establish only English as the language of Luge...

d) keep up with their excellent streaming service (and why not? even improve the picture quality), but move it from the internal player of their website to an "open" platform/app like Youtube or Dailymotion or similar one, available on most (if not all) connected device like smart tv and/or android tv/android boxes/apple tv...

e) enforce the attention to the Natural Track Luge by making it Olympic in all the 4 events and organizing the same Live Timing and Live/Ondemand streaming service already in place for the Artificial Track Luge...

f) pushing for more "diversity", trying everything they can to enlarge the number of competitive Countries in both the ATL and NTL (I know...this is the most difficult task, but they really have to try and find the way to improve this aspect of the sport)...

 

I'd be so disappointed if they move the video streaming to Dailymotion. YouTube, sure, but apart from that the one they've got is fantastic.

 

Making natural track luge Olympic, no way  Of all the non-international events winter sports automatically has by merit of being winter sports, natural track luge is really the least necessary to include. Let's just start with 5-6 years of good live streaming services and slowly see where it moves.

 

About the maximum tracks per country per season: only if they find a way to do so without decreasing the actual number of events.

[phelps 7,670]

48 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

I'd be so disappointed if they move the video streaming to Dailymotion. YouTube, sure, but apart from that the one they've got is fantastic.

 

the FIL streaming is fantastic, but it can only be watched through a computer with a browser...

 

I do really need it to be on a platform with an app I can watch lying on the couch on my tv screen...

 

50 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

Making natural track luge Olympic, no way  Of all the non-international events winter sports automatically has by merit of being winter sports, natural track luge is really the least necessary to include. Let's just start with 5-6 years of good live streaming services and slowly see where it moves.

 

then I fear you'll be disappointed when they make it Olympic in 2026...

because this it's gonna happen...

 

52 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

About the maximum tracks per country per season: only if they find a way to do so without decreasing the actual number of events.

 

sure, that's obvious...

and it wouldn't be difficult...counting only the already existing tracks, we can have a North-american tour with 1 race in CAN (Calgary and Whistler alternating themselves in even and odd years) and USA (the same with Lake Placid and Park City) and then the traditional European season with Lillehammer, Sigulda, Igls, St.Moritz, Koenigssee, La Plagne (they only need some refurbishing and some money to reinstate it as a world cup track also for Luge), Sochi and they could also have a trip to Far east with Pyeongchang and Nagano (even if it could prove expensive to get this one back in place)...

and of course Cortina is coming back...

so, it's not that there are no tracks available to have a full season with only 1 race in Germany...

and if we have to make an exception to this rule, I'd rather like to have the double race in CAN and/or the USA than in GER...at least for some time (maybe after some pause of German inflation, we could also get back twice a year if needed, but no more than that)...

[heywoodu 15,135]

46 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

the FIL streaming is fantastic, but it can only be watched through a computer with a browser...

 

I do really need it to be on a platform with an app I can watch lying on the couch on my tv screen...

 

 

then I fear you'll be disappointed when they make it Olympic in 2026...

because this it's gonna happen...

 

 

sure, that's obvious...

and it wouldn't be difficult...counting only the already existing tracks, we can have a North-american tour with 1 race in CAN (Calgary and Whistler alternating themselves in even and odd years) and USA (the same with Lake Placid and Park City) and then the traditional European season with Lillehammer, Sigulda, Igls, St.Moritz, Koenigssee, La Plagne (they only need some refurbishing and some money to reinstate it as a world cup track also for Luge), Sochi and they could also have a trip to Far east with Pyeongchang and Nagano (even if it could prove expensive to get this one back in place)...

and of course Cortina is coming back...

so, it's not that there are no tracks available to have a full season with only 1 race in Germany...

and if we have to make an exception to this rule, I'd rather like to have the double race in CAN and/or the USA than in GER...at least for some time (maybe after some pause of German inflation, we could also get back twice a year if needed, but no more than that)...

 

If there have to be exceptions, a better option would be to alternate which country has two races in one season. Then again, it's not going to be any other country than Germany, because sports need money to stay alive and that's coming from Germany.

 

I won't be disappointed if they add it for 2026, it'd be fun to see it in one Olympic cycle. But speaking from a neutral perspective, NTL is just really, really not worthy of being a full-time Olympic sport.

[LowerSaxony 205]

52 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

If there have to be exceptions, a better option would be to alternate which country has two races in one season. Then again, it's not going to be any other country than Germany, because sports need money to stay alive and that's coming from Germany.

 

Yep, that is the point. If you take a look at this list of official FIL sponsors, you can only find German companies and firms: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/about-fil/partners-and-sponsors

Exception's a bakery from South Tyrol which only sponsors Natural Track Luge.

 

If we are honest, nobody with the exception of Germany, Austria and Italy gives a flying fuck about luge. There will be no money from the US or Asia spent for Luge.

In general, I totally agree that it is desirable to have more World Cups outside of Germany. But that simply won't happen, at least not to that extent you wish for. Viessmann and BMW, who kept Luge alive over the past decades, are not interested in having half of the races at night times in Germany. Moreover, Calgary is currently closed indefinetely.

 

Btw: It is really expensive to keep a track in shape over the years. Best example is the beautiful track in Cesana Pariol which had to be shut down for economic reasons.

Edited February 28, 2020 by LowerSaxony

[Grassmarket 3,403]

It is the Olympic Committee who decides which events get into the Olympics, so there is not much chance of natural track getting in because at the moment when the IOC are concentrating on stupid non-sports like breakdancing.

 

Agree with the YouTube idea, would be much more high-profile.

 

Very hard to get more countries involved - luge already had a great system with the Nations Cup on Fridays serving as an entry to the World Cup, we would not want to disrupt that.

[heywoodu 15,135]

8 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

It is the Olympic Committee who decides which events get into the Olympics, so there is not much chance of natural track getting in because at the moment when the IOC are concentrating on stupid non-sports like breakdancing.

 

Agree with the YouTube idea, would be much more high-profile.

 

Very hard to get more countries involved - luge already had a great system with the Nations Cup on Fridays serving as an entry to the World Cup, we would not want to disrupt that.

 

Although if we're going to bother international federations to get their streaming services in order, FIL is rather low on the list compared to many others  

 

IFSC and IBSF are on the top of my list of excellent federations in terms of streaming, but FIL is pretty high too.

[Grassmarket 3,403]

9 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

Although if we're going to bother international federations to get their streaming services in order, FIL is rather low on the list compared to many others  

 

IFSC and IBSF are on the top of my list of excellent federations in terms of streaming, but FIL is pretty high too.

Oh sure: it’s just the fact it’s such a great service that it deserves a bigger platform.  Still can’t get over the fact that the UIPM sent their commentators out to Cairo & managed to miss 80% of their race yesterday. 

[heywoodu 15,135]

The only thing luge really should change about their streaming services is the thumbnails of the videos! I usually manage to hover my hand over them and only see the title ("Men 2nd run" for example), but they generally show some athlete celebrate or something so if you see it, that's a rather major spoiler. If I'm seeing spoilers, I don't really need to watch the whole thing anymore  

 

Same thing for the Twitter feed on that page. First thing I do when going to rewatch something is scroll the Twitter feed down all the way to the bottom without looking at the most recent ones  

Edited February 29, 2020 by heywoodu