From Berchtesgaden, GER
(August 5, 2026) – The International Luge Federation has scheduled for the first time something called “Super Slide Mode”, which is a deviation from its regular sliding weekend schedule.
Traditionally, an FIL World Cup weekend has held a relatively specific format, with the top sliders over the last few races being “seeded” and automatically qualified into the World Cup race weekend. Everyone else slides the day before in the Nation’s Cup event, with the top X number of sliders (depending on the field size, discipline, etc) making it into the World Cup race on the weekend. Seeded sliders get an extra training run to make up for the lack of a Nation’s Cup run to make the ice time fair.
Super Slide Mode is different. Here’s how it works:
For starters, there’s no paid training time allowed on the week of the race. Then on race week, all sleds get one training session with two runs. To qualify for the qualification runs a sled has to finish within 7% of the quick downtime for their respective discipline.
There’s then a single qualification run, not unlike the old single-run qualification for the Sprint event in the World Championships. The top 30 singles sliders and top 24 doubles teams make it to the World Cup weekend.
Like the regular World Cup weekends, the field will go off from starting spots 1-30, then 20-1 in the second heat. But the starts are like the Mixed events, with a gate opening and a reaction start. The time starts when the gate opens. In between runs no modifications are allowed on the sled, but repairs may be made if there’s damage due to an issue in the first run.
So that’s a rundown of how it all works. The first event with this format will be held in Oberhof on January 22 – 24. A full rundown of the FIL schedule can be found on the Sliding On Ice master schedule page linked here.