While in Europe the winter – or better the lack of a winter – has caused one cancellation after the other in all winter sports, there comes excellent news from Canada: “In most places the ice on the track is more than 40cm thick. In fact the only delay in preparation has been the removal of too much snow. Preparations are well under control and we are ready for the Championships,” says Bryan Jones from the Grande Prairie organizing committee. After last year´s World Cup at the Nitehawk Skiing area the track has been slightly modified: “The finish or braking area has been lengthened by a minimum of 10 meters”, so Jones.

While the athletes are still competing in Passeier (ITA) to finish the World Cup season there, some of the FIL officials are already getting ready to visit Canada. FIL president Josef Fendt as well as FIL vice president Harald Steyrer will be present at the first Canadian World Championships. “This event will hopefully initiate an explosion of the natural track sport on the American continent. While Canada is quite active already, we would like to see some more spirit in the USA, especially considering that the USA is one of the leading luge nations. We would appreciate to see them support natural track a bit more”, says Steyrer, and further: “Having the World Championships in Canada will hopefully be a huge step forward. For the FIL it means a lot be present in Canada and America, but it is also a fact that the FIL alone cannot spread the sport over the world, we need the help of the federations, so we appreciate the effort of the Canadians.”

Herbert Wurzer, FIL World Cup coordinator and head of the FIL sports commission, is confident to see excellent Championships in Grande Prairie: „Based on our experiences of the World Cups held in Grande Prairie already, we are sure that it will be interesting and attractive Championships. We are happy that for the first time we will have this event on the American continent and I hope it will be a motivation to keep going. There is a natural track complex in Grande Prairie already and we hope that also after the World Championships the activities there will be continued and that we can come back on a regular basis with international competitions.” Especially considering the climate changes, Wurzer sees another advantage in Grande Prairie: “The region can almost guarantee snow and even if there is no snow it will be cold enough to produce artificial snow or ice. They have the facilities to do so as the track is located in a skiing area.”

As soon as the last world cup points will be distributed in Italy, all athletes and officials will start their journey across the Atlantic. History has proved that sometimes the transport of the equipment (sleds are usually packed in boxes and need a lot of space) can be tricky, so travel has to be planned well in advance. The training runs will start on Friday, the competitions will start on Saturday with the team event and be continued on Sunday and Monday, which is the Canadian Family Day and a maximum of spectators is expected.