Canada
CALGARY – Canada has stolen a coach from the powerhouse German luge team in order to get Canadians on the podium at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and beyond.
The Canadian Luge Association introduced Wolfgang (Stoddy) Staudinger at a news conference Tuesday at the Ice House at Canada Olympic Park.
Staudinger was an assistant coach of the German luge team that includes the current world champions David Moller and Tatjana Huefner. The German women routinely sweep the podium in World Cup races.
Canada’s luge team hasn’t produced nearly as many World Cup or world championship medals as the country’s two other two sliding sports – bobsleigh and skeleton.
Canadians have won three World Cup medals in individual races in the history of the sport, with Regan Lauscher’s silver in 2004 the country’s best result yet.
With financial help from Own The Podium, the CLA was able to sign Staudinger on until 2014.
"Bringing Wolfgang on is a huge step forward in our program," Lauscher said. "He’s pointed me in the right direction.
"I have a clear vision of where I need to go and the steps I need to do to get there."
Staudinger initially wasn’t anxious to leave a country that produced medallists every week, but after studying video of Canadians, Staudinger felt they have the potential to be the best in the world.
"They are absolutely in the ball game," he said. "They are pretty close in athletic ability. What they are lacking is some skill level.
"I compare the German hockey team to the Canadian hockey team. Why is the Germany team not performing up to the Canadian team? Simply because the skill level and skating is not as good. What we have to do to improve in Canada is get the skill level in sliding up equal to the German team."
Staudinger has been working with Canada’s nine-member luge team for about six weeks and Jeff Christie feels a difference already.
"He’s brought a way," Christie said. "Before, we had a lot of ideas and were trying a lot of things with steels and training. They’re all very good ideas, but it’s really tiring to be working on seven different things.
"He brought a way that said `these are the things we need to do, if you do this, you will be successful’ and we believe him and we know that it’s true because he’s trained Olympic and world champions, World Cup medallists and World Cup overall medallists.
"Most of all, we’re going to have a winning attitude on our team. Before, we always wanted that, but we’ve never had somebody who has had that success and been there and feels comfortable with it."
The luge team opens the World Cup season Nov. 16-17 in Lake Placid, N.Y., followed by World Cup races Nov. 23-24 at Calgary’s Canada Olympic Park.
Walter Corey, who has coached the luge team since 2003, has moved into the role of high-performance director.
Staudinger will be assisted by two other Germans. Steffen Skel, who specializes in doubles, also joined the team this year, while Robert Fegg continues on in the role he’s had since 2003.
Staudinger, 44, has several connections to Canada and Calgary starting with the Olympic bronze he won in doubles at the 1988 Games here.
His wife Marie-Claude Doyon is Canadian and won a World Cup bronze in 1987. They have an eight-year-old daughter Rebecca.
"I have half a Canadian heart I should say," Staudinger said.
Staudinger also coached here from 1989 to 1992 before heading to the U.S. program and then back to the German team.
"There’s not very many top luge coaches in the world and to be able to access someone as good as Wolfgang, it’s just going to put us to a level that only a few teams have," said Tim Farstad, the CLA’s executive director.
"It’s more important than just about anything at this point, because the level that we’re at, it gets us to the next step."
Where there is a significant gap between Canada and Germany is in their technology and equipment, said Staudinger.
"Right now we are still lacking quite a bit from equipment base and there is still a ways to catch up," he said. "Over the summer, we started to bring all the existing equipment up to a German standard.
"Over the next year, we will bring in some new equipment. To change everything at once wouldn’t be a good thing either."
Coaches of Staudinger’s calibre make between US$80,000 and $120,000 in salary a year, but it’s the length of the seven-year contract that is eye-catching.
"It took about two months of going back and forth with Wolfgang and then going to OTP and making sure we could support his financial requests," explained Nicholas Bass, OTP’s high performance adviser to luge.
"Wolfgang is not replacing a coach. We’ve expanded the coaches so instead of having two coaches on the World Cup we have three."
Added Staudinger: "To come for two or three years doesn’t really make sense. Yes, we want to succeed to the maximum in 2010, but I want to grow with these athletes all the way to 2014."
Source: Canada hires top German luge coach
