Oberhof luge track

Oberhof luge track
Plan of the train
place	Oberhof , Germany
Installation	18th December 1971
Orbit data Maximum height difference  m begin length Curves Bob start  m Skeleton start  m Toboggan start men 1069.70 m 14th Toboggan start women 945.60 m 11 Double-seater start 945.60 m 11

Coordinates: 50 ° 42 ′ 48 ″  N , 10 ° 42 ′ 34 ″  E

The Oberhof luge track is an artificial ice rink for luge , skeleton and bobsleigh sports near Oberhof in Thuringia . It was built from 1969 to 1970 as the world's second artificially iceable toboggan run and inaugurated in 1971. After several renovations, its total length is 1354.5 meters with fifteen curves (competition length 1069.70 meters and fourteen curves). Due to the high speed and the short series of tight turns, the track is technically difficult. In 1973, 1985 and 2008 the Luge World Championships were held on this track . For the 2023 World Cup, the artificial ice rink was selected for the fourth time for these championships. Found on her Luge World Cup place, but no Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Cup , since the time required for the start-up bobsledding track is missing. It is also a center of attraction for tourism, as it can be driven on by guest sleds. The track is regularly used as a training track by various national teams, including German luge riders and bobsledders.

location

Luge start facility

The toboggan run is located about 1.5 kilometers northwest of Oberhof on the northern slope of the 903.8 meter high Schützenberg on the Fallbach brooks and on state road  128 from Oberhof to Steinbach-Hallenberg and about one kilometer to the Grenzadler with the Lotto Thuringia Arena on the Rennsteig . The start area of ​​the train is right on the road to Steinbach-Hallenberg, the finish area near the Oberer Schweizer Hof , the former guest house of the SED Politburo . The valley station of the two- person Fallbachlift cable car , which runs over the toboggan run to the mountain station, is located near the destination . The toboggan run is around 800 meters above sea ​​level and is relatively prone to fog in winter due to its central location in the Thuringian Forest .

description

Curve 2

The toboggan run is a sports facility of the Oberhof performance center of the Olympic Training Center Thuringia , the center of winter sports promotion in Thuringia and is available to top and young athletes from the Bundeswehr sports promotion group stationed there and the sports gymnasium . The track is used by luge and bobsleigh drivers from all over the world for driver training and for holding competitions. It was designed as a pure luge track and therefore does not have the usual push-up track for bobsleigh. Due to the tight bends in quick succession, the track is technically demanding and one of the most difficult in the world. In contrast to most other toboggan runs, it does not have long sliding sections, but the curves merge into one another. Since the opening, the railway has had to be adapted to the increasing speeds several times through renovations, by partially relocating and widening curves.

Junior start and turn 7

In competition terms, it is only used for luge and skeleton. International bobsleigh races only take place at invitation events such as the Hoppe Challenge Cup . The railway operators offer summer bobsleigh rides and guest bobsleigh rides in winter, where the bobsleighs are steered by experienced bobsledders.

The track is artificially frozen in October and then kept by cooling until the end of the winter sports season. For this purpose, ammonia is pumped through the cooling pipes running in the track , which extracts the heat from the concrete. Sprayed water immediately freezes to ice on the supercooled concrete, which lasts until spring after preparation. Training takes place on the track up to outside temperatures of 18 degrees Celsius . Since 2001, the toboggan run has had a special start system in the finish area, on which athletes can practice sledding and bobsleigh. The runway is covered with awning in strong sunlight to prevent the ice from melting. The sails also protect against precipitation.

Orbit data

The toboggan run overcomes a height difference of almost 100 meters. The men's start is at 831.50 meters above sea level and the finish at 735.13 meters. The average gradient is 9.2 percent. Fourteen curves have to be negotiated for the largest competition length. During the last renovation in 2006, another curve 15 was added behind the finish area as an exit. However, the time driven is already measured after curve 14. The curves are very narrow with a radius between twelve and about twenty meters with the exception of curve 9 (radius 30 meters). Top speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour can be achieved on the train .

There are several starting positions depending on the sport and gender. The top starting house, the men's start, is used for tobogganing, skeleton and bobsleigh. Down the track, the women's start follows before turn 4. This is used for tobogganing and skeleton for women and men’s doubles. The junior start joins the track at turn 8, the pioneer start for the youngest riders before turn 12. Since its last renovation in 2006, the toboggan run has a total length of 1354.50 meters, with the maximum competition length (men's start) being 1069.70 meters . At the women's start the competition length is 945.60 meters. Between the two renovation phases in 1996 and 2006, the total length of the track was 1235.00 meters with a competition length of 1063.50 meters for the men's start, 930.40 meters for the women’s start and 665.40 meters for the youth start. From the opening in 1971 to the first renovation in 1996, the total length of the track was 1113.11 meters (competition length from the men's start 1032.89 meters and from the women's start 930.40 meters).

The starting system for the bobsleigh start is a total of 117 meters long, the approach route is 32 meters long with a gradient of two percent. The middle section is 40 meters long and has a gradient of seven percent, the outlet is 45 meters long with a gradient of 20 percent. For luge the total length is 77 meters, the approach route is 16.25 meters long with a gradient of 26.8 percent. The 15 meter long middle section has no gradient, the outlet is 42 meters long with a gradient of seven percent.

List of records

The railway was rebuilt in 1996 and 2006, with the length of the railway changing each time. There were new track records after every renovation. The first track record is also listed. Another list is the start records.

Track records

Toboggan men	Toboggan women	Toboggan double	Two-man bobsleigh
Track records from 2006
42.714 seconds - 2018 Felix Hole	41.074 seconds - 2018 Natalie Geisenberger	40.630 seconds - 2019 Eggert / Benecken
Track records from 1996 to 2006
44.129 seconds - 1998 Georg Hackl	41.206 seconds - 2006 Silke Kraushaar	41.111 seconds - 2006 Oberstolz / Gruber
Track records until 1996 (first and last)
44.283 seconds - 1987 Jens Müller	41.289 seconds - 1989 Gabriele Kohlisch	41.434 seconds - 1994 Krauße / Behrendt	44.620 seconds - 1989 Hoppe / Musiol
49.751 seconds - 1971 Wolfgang Scheidel	46.185 seconds - 1971 Ute Rührold	46.172 seconds - 1971 Hörnlein / Bredow	48,800 seconds - 1974 Schönau / Bernhardt

Starting records

Toboggan men	Toboggan women	Toboggan double
7.088 seconds - 2014 Andi Langenhan	6.723 seconds - 2017 Tatjana Huefner	6.549 seconds - 2016 Wendl / Arlt

history

Old bobsleigh run Oberhof;
1953, with the drivers Erich Hansen, Kirchner, Feist, Schelter

The first bobsleigh run already existed in Oberhof in 1905. The Wadebergbob track was put into operation in 1908 with a length of 1908 meters, a maximum gradient of twelve percent and an average gradient of nine percent. The railway was the first in Germany to have an electric sled and passenger elevator and electric timekeeping. Over time, several toboggan and bobsleigh runs were built in Oberhof so that the runs could be used by different clubs at the same time. Oberhof was the center of racing and bobsleigh in Germany. The bobsleigh world championships in two-man bobsleigh took place on the Wadeberg bobsleigh in 1931. The races on this track, such as numerous German championships, sometimes attracted up to 40,000 visitors.

planning

Arrival 1980

At the end of the 1960s, the bobsleigh run on the Wadeberg was no longer up to date, the other runs had already been closed earlier. The preparation of the track was associated with a lot of effort every winter. Heat drops over a longer period of time often prevented the implementation of planned competitions. All railways in the world have problems with this if they are not, like St. Moritz , for example , at a great height. In 1969, in the Berchtesgadener Land on Königssee , the Königssee artificial ice rink was the world's first toboggan run that could be artificially frozen. In Oberhof, plans matured to artificially freeze a train there too, in order to make it independent of the weather. On April 8, 1969, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) decided the development of competitive sports up to the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo in all sports. In order to offer the athletes the best possible training conditions for the upcoming major event, it was decided to build an artificial ice rink. A sled run that could be naturally iced over was planned in Oberwiesenthal and an artificially iced runway in Oberhof, the center of winter sports in the GDR. The costs played only a subordinate role here.

Long straight

From 1968, the state project planning for sports buildings based in Leipzig was entrusted with the planning of the course and the calculation of the curve geometry. The Stuttgart planning office Deyle, which had already planned the railway at Königssee, began planning work for the cooling system in the railway shell in 1969. The construction manager Dieter Schmidt from Schmiedefeld am Rennsteig , who had already worked ten years earlier for the construction of the Hansa Renner-Schanze had been active in the Kanzlersgrund. It was also his job to find the location for the new lift. There were initial considerations to build it parallel to the old Wadeberg bobsleigh run. However, this location was discarded because of the unfavorable south-facing slope. Other possible locations were the Pfanntal, the Kanzlersgrund, there as an additional structure to the ski jump, and on the fall brooks. The latter finally prevailed. There it was also supported by the fact that an existing hiking trail already dictated the course of the railway. There were problems because the intended location was in the catchment area of ​​the Ohra Dam . Finally, an agreement was reached between the GDR sports management, nature conservationists and water management experts.

construction

The road and civil engineering combination from Suhl began in May 1970 with the earthworks. The planning was done by the Scientific and Technical Center for Sports Buildings (WTZ) Leipzig from the Deyle planning office. Yugoslav companies that had previously built the Panorama and Rennsteig hotels took over the concrete work. The formwork for the curves caused problems for the construction workers, as they previously only had to deal with straight surfaces. Information about the construction of the Königsseebahn was obtained from where parquet layers from Italy had made the formwork for the curves on site. Due to time constraints, this was not possible in Oberhof, as the track should be in place in 1971 for training for the Olympic Games. Local designers and civil engineers solved the problem by having mainframe computers calculate transverse profiles of the railway, which could be implemented as steel structures.

The construction company of the civil engineer Ulrich Müther developed the concrete spraying process for the construction of bobsleigh and toboggan runs together with the WTZ for sports buildings in Leipzig . This procedure was first used on the Oberhof toboggan run. Concrete was sprayed onto separate curve sections made of wire mesh without using formwork . Concrete foundations were created at the site of the later railway, on which the steel girders were later placed. Cold pipes running parallel to each other were then laid on the steel girders. Subsequently, the construction received a stabilizing steel net from the construction company Müther . Sections each 60 meters long were pre-assembled on the Grenzadler and transported to the construction site. The individual track sections were then put together at the construction site. This method was so convincing that later all railways were built according to this modular principle.

Two-man bobsleigh transport, 1974

A large part of the steel frame of the railway was finished in September 1970 so that the concrete could be sprayed on. A very fine cement was used to prevent the concrete mass from running down the sloping surfaces. The entire steel frame was set in concrete within two months from September 6th to November 6th. In the winter of 1970/71 the building of the refrigeration machine house followed. In the spring of 1971, the track was frozen for the first time on a trial basis and toboggan trials were carried out. The first test runs took place in March, when there was still a major construction site around the railway. You started at the bottom curve and moved the start one curve upwards, whereby the speeds increased accordingly. Luge Lutz Anschütz was the first to start from the very top. Even before the track was completed and tested, the International Luge Federation (FIL) awarded the 1973 World Luge Championships to Oberhof.

The wiring was done in the summer of 1971. In the autumn of 1971, further, mostly secret, test drives took place, during which an accident occurred. The then trainer Gottfried Legler wanted to carry out a test run with a wheeled sled. During the first run there were communication problems as no two-way radio had been installed. At the same time there were construction workers on the train who attached an iron rod to adjust the light barrier. The toboggan runner Erich Enders raced into this iron bar, but instinctively lifted his feet so that he flew across the track. The sled was destroyed on the pole. Enders was miraculously unharmed. The first official training in the new track took place in September 1971. It was completed at the end of 1971. The construction costs amounted to 35 million marks. Upon completion, the Wadeberg bobsleigh track was the last naturally icy track in Oberhof to be shut down.

opening

GDR postage stamp for the 1973 World Cup

The first track records were set on November 25, 1971. Wolfgang Scheidel from Oberhof achieved a time of 49.751 seconds in the single-seater. The first official race on the world's second artificial ice rink took place on the occasion of the GDR championship in luge on December 18, 1971. The first international competition was held in March 1972 as a test race for the upcoming 1973 World Championships in Oberhof. The hosts won all competitions with Margit Schumann , Wolfram Fiedler and the Olympic champion Horst Hörnlein with Reinhard Bredow . Wolfram Fiedler set a new track record which, at 48.57 seconds, was more than one second below Scheidel's old record. The toboggan run was not only used by professional athletes. In 1972 the children and youth spartakiad took place on the railway. Almost every winter weekend there was a competition on the track.

Hörnlein (front) and Bredow at the GDR championships in 1971 in Oberhof

In 1973 the Luge World Championships took place in Oberhof in front of a total of 80,000 spectators . The President of the FIL, Bert Isatitsch , then described these competitions as “a huge success that will go down in the history of sled racing.” A delegation from the Swedish National Sports Association was also present at the championships. Head of Information Wolf Lyberg , Deputy Secretary General of the Swedish NOK , said about the World Championships: “These numbers of spectators at the sled run! You simply cannot imagine that: over 20,000 on one event day. I'm really excited. ” Except for the bronze medal in the men's doubles, in which there was no third GDR toboggan runner, the Oberhof athletes won eight of the nine medals. Hans Rinn won the men’s singles, Margit Schumann won the women’s singles; the men's doubles were won by Horst Hörnlein and Reinhard Bredow.

Bobsleigh track

Two-man bobsled 1983

Since the track was designed as a pure toboggan run from the start, the individual curve radii are also designed to be very tight. When Romanian bobsleigh riders made individual trips here in 1973, the idea of ​​using the track for bobsleighs also matured. First of all, it had to be checked whether the track was able to withstand the heavier loads caused by the heavier bobsleds. The former Romanian European champion Ion Panțuru was one of the first to officially go down the track in a two-man bobsleigh. His judgment was that the track was ideally suited as a training track. For international competitions, however, the usual push-off route is missing. It cannot be used for four-man bobsleds because of the tight curves. The first bobsleigh riders moved into Oberhof on July 30, 1973. This also established bobsleigh as a high-performance sport in Oberhof. In January 1974 there was the first competition in the two-man bobsleigh with the GDR championship on the track. The winners were Peter Kirchner and Roland Ebersbach . In 1975, a separate start system was installed in the finish area, which is a copy of the Igls bobsleigh run in Innsbruck . This was built at the same time for the 1976 Olympic Games .

Competitions

GDR Junior Championships 1975

In 1975 the European Junior Luge Championships took place on the track. The winners of the three competitions were Bernhard Glass , Monika Jedamsky and Bernd Dreyer with Peter Sauer . In 1979 the first senior European luge championships took place on the new track. At the 27th European Luge Championships on February 3 and 4, 1979, the Oberhof athletes won eight of the nine possible medals except for one bronze. The winners were Hans Rinn , Melitta Sollmann and in doubles Bernd Oberhoffner and Jörg-Dieter Ludwig in front of 40,000 spectators on both days of the competition. For women, there was one of the tightest decisions in luge history. Ilona Brand led for three laps, but after the fourth and decisive run she fell a hundredth of a second behind Sollmann.

Michael Walter 1984 in Oberhof

In 1978 an artificially frozen start-up route was added. Before that, there was already a push route for bobsleighs on wheels. Dieter Schmidt, the construction manager of the toboggan run, had fetched rails from a mine near Ilmenau . Three competitions for young riders took place on the track with the youth competitions of friendship, the championships of the military sports organization of the armies of the Warsaw Pact (SKDA) in 1981 and the SKDA Spartakiade in 1983. In 1985, the second World Luge Championships were held on the Oberhofer Bahn . The Oberhofer again won eight out of nine medals. The winners were Michael Walter , Steffi Martin and in the men's doubles Jörg Hoffmann with Jochen Pietzsch . The last competitions on the toboggan run for the time being took place in 1996 with the finals of the Luge World Cup on February 17th and 18th. After that the track was closed and rebuilt. The last track record on the old track was held by Jens Müller from Oberhof with 44.283 seconds, set on December 6, 1987. In the women's category, the record was 41.289 seconds by Gabriele Kohlisch from Oberwiesenthal on December 6, 1989.

skeleton

As early as the mid-1980s, the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) strove to include skeleton in the Olympic program again, which only succeeded at the 2002 Winter Olympics . In order to be able to take part in these competitions, skeleton was established in Oberhof in the 1990s, for which the track was well suited. In 1993 the first skeleton world cup took place on this track.

modification

Night drive 1975

25 years after the first completion, the Oberhof toboggan run had to be modernized in 1996. A lot had happened in tobogganing during this period: new materials, aerodynamic suits and improved training methods; the record in the men's singles had improved by more than six seconds during this period. The speeds reached in the ice channel became higher and higher. The tight curve radii meant a great risk to the athletes, who had problems with the combination of turns 11 and 12 in particular. These curve passages now had to be rebuilt, curve 12 was moved further outwards; the connection curves 11 and 13 have been adjusted accordingly. Because of the high speeds in the target area, the slope had to be changed. The Stuttgart planning office Deyle took over the planning of the renovation work again. Most of the construction companies came from the Thuringian region. The cost of the renovation work from April to October 1996 amounted to 4.66 million marks, with around three million being borne by the federal government and just under 1.7 million by the Free State of Thuringia. The district of Schmalkalden / Meiningen participated with 260,000 marks, the city of Oberhof with 80,000 marks. It was not until 1997 that training could be resumed on the track.

Armin Zöggeler at the start of the Luge World Cup 2005 in Oberhof

Since the 1996/97 season there have been new records in all disciplines due to the lengthening of the track. The length of the track, seen from the start of the men's toboggan run, increased from 1032.89 to 1063.50 meters. In 1997, another Luge World Cup competition was held on the Oberhofer Bahn. This year the Junior World Championships also took place here. A year later, in 1998, the European Luge Championship took place here, with Markus Prock from Austria winning the men's race, Silke Kraushaar and Stefan Krauße's women's race with Jan Behrendt .

The FIL has been awarding a Luge World Cup to Oberhof every year since 1999. Between 2001 and 2003, minor reconstructions were carried out on the track: in the finish area a new starting system was built for training the bobsleigh start, in 2002 and 2003 the ammonia lines were renewed and finally curve 14 (Köstritzer roundabout) was made accessible to visitors. In 2004 the 39th European Luge Championships took place on the Oberhofer Bahn . The victories went to Armin Zöggeler from Italy, Silke Kraushaar from Oberhof and Steffen Skel with Steffen Wöller in the two-man toboggan. The team ranking was won by Jan Eichhorn , Silke Kraushaar, Steffen Skel and Steffen Wöller.

Further modifications

New outlet on the track in 2007

From March 2006 profile work took place and a men's, women's and weighing house were built. The curve covers and the weather protection of the railway were renovated, the ski lift roof was extended and an intermediate launch ramp was built. The competition length of the track was extended to 1069.70 meters, the total length with run-out is now 1354.50 meters. The renovation work dragged on until winter 2006/07 and cost around five million euros. Of these, the federal government took over 2.8 million, the state two million and the district 256,000.

For the 2008 Luge World Championships , the track operators installed a mobile grandstand for 1,000 spectators as well as three video walls and a new display board in the finish area. A total of between 10,000 and 20,000 spectators watched the two-day championship runs on the track. The German tobogganers won nine out of ten possible medals in these competitions. In the men's singles, Felix Loch won ahead of three other Germans, which meant a quadruple victory and the first triple success of a country at world championships since 1985. The best German female tobogganist was Tatjana Hüfner ahead of other German women. André Florschütz and Torsten Wustlich won the doubles . On the last day the Germans won the team competition. A bronze medal in a two-seater was the only medal that went to foreign tobogganists.

Renovation from 2020

The railway is to be modernized from April 2020 for a total of EUR 31.5 million. This was announced on October 24, 2019 at a press conference in Oberhof. The Luge World Championships will be held on the track in 2023 . The Free State of Thuringia and the Federal Ministry of the Interior share the costs. The owner is the Thuringian winter sports center Oberhof. In November 2019, the first EU-wide calls for tenders for 44 projects will be issued. The handover of the converted system is scheduled to take place in September 2022. After the construction work, a future-proof, sporty level for competitive and youth sports, with an environmentally friendly energy supply, is to be offered. In addition, tourist offers are planned.

literature

• Thuringian Sledge and Bobsleigh Association (TSBV), City of Oberhof (publisher): 25 years of the Oberhof artificial ice rink. Ilmenau
• Wolfgang Fritzsche: Oberhof: History - Landscape - Tips - Hikes . 2nd Edition. Verlag Grünes Herz, Ilmenau 2005, ISBN 3-935621-29-9 .
• Gerd Falkner : Chronicle of skiing in the German Democratic Republic . Ed .: German Ski Association. Self-published, 2000.
• Rolf Hackel: Oberhof: From the Johanniter hospice to the city on Rennsteig; History and landscape Oberhof - a center of winter sports, hiking in the heart of the Thuringian Forest . In: Cities and municipalities in Thuringia . Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH ( i.G. ), Ilmenau 1993, ISBN 3-929164-12-4 .
• Jan Knapp among others: 100 years of winter sports in Oberhof . Ed .: Wintersportverein Oberhof 05. Bauer and Malsch GmbH.
• WinterSportVerein Oberhof 05 e. V. (Hrsg.): Oberhof magazine - winter sports has a name . Suhl print.

Web links

Commons : Oberhof luge track  - collection of images

• ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Website of the Oberhof Luge Track )
• Luge track at the Thuringian winter sports center Oberhof

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Thuringian State Surveying Office (ed.): Oberhof and surroundings. 1: 25,000. Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-86140-183-5 .
2. ↑ Sports promotion group Oberhof: Medal forge with tradition. Federal Ministry of Defense, July 10, 2008, accessed on March 13, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Oberhof sports high school. Retrieved March 13, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Oberhof. (No longer available online.) The fascination of bobsleigh, archived from the original on October 6, 2007 ; Retrieved January 2, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Bob Ice Rafting. (No longer available online.) Thuringian Winter Sports Center Oberhof, archived from the original on December 29, 2008 ; Retrieved January 2, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} toboggan run & launch area. (No longer available online.) Thuringian Winter Sports Center Oberhof, archived from the original on December 29, 2008 ; Retrieved January 1, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af} Thüringer Schlitten- und Bobsportverband (TSBV), City of Oberhof (ed.): 25 Years of artificial ice rink Oberhof.
8. ↑ Wintersport-Förderverein Rennsteig e. V. (Ed.): 39th European Championships - Luge - Oberhof / Thuringia. P. 9.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} History of the toboggan run. (No longer available online.) Thuringian Winter Sports Center Oberhof, archived from the original on April 29, 2015 ; accessed on December 31, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ Start system - toboggan run. Oberhof luge track, accessed on January 2, 2009 . 
11. ^ Jan Knapp et al: 100 years of winter sports in Oberhof.
12. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Rolf Hackel: Oberhof - From the Johanniter hospice to the city on the Rennsteig. P. 163.
13. ↑ Gerd Falkner: Chronicle of skiing in the German Democratic Republic. P. 91.
14. ↑ Klaus Stiglat: civil engineers and their work. Ernst & Sohn , Berlin 2003, 509 pp., ISBN 978-3-433-01665-7 , p. 259, online text
15. ↑ ^{a b} Rolf Hackel: Oberhof - From the hospice of the Johanniter to the city on the Rennsteig. P. 164.
16. ^ Rolf Hackel: Oberhof - From the hospice of the Johanniter to the city on the Rennsteig. P. 174.
17. ↑ New Oberhof toboggan run is a long time coming. Focus, September 20, 2006, accessed December 31, 2008 . 
18. ↑ Quadruple triumph for Germany. T-Online, January 26, 2008, accessed January 1, 2009 . 
19. ^ German athletes in the gold rush. T-Online, January 27, 2008, accessed January 1, 2009 . 
20. ↑ Start of construction in April: 31.5 million euros for Oberhofer Eiskanal. In: thueringer-allgemeine.de . dpa , October 24, 2019, accessed on October 25, 2019 . 

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on February 27, 2009 in this version .