Luge 2025

Another season over, and another phenomenal competition completed, this year at the Olympic Bobsleigh Skeleton and Luge Track, Lillehammer, Norway.

The season began as usual with the off-ice selection camps, the keystone of grassroots development. The Royal Navy (RN) starting off with selection at RNAS Yeovilton utilising their Luge training start ramp, the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducting hill training at RAF Halton, and the British Army conducting similar selection camps.

Novice development continued for the RN and RAF at the dedicated Luge training track in Bludenz, Austria, in December 2024, a recently tried and tested venue from the RNs 2023 Development Camp. Offering significantly more ice time, at much cheaper prices, it allowed both services to develop a crop of new sliders, broadening the reach of the sport in the services. The Army stuck whole ship and conducted their tri-discipline camp in resort at Lillehammer also in December, followed by their Army Service Championships in Igls, Austria in January 2025.
Championship week arrived in February 2025, with all three services arriving in resort on the Saturday evening to settle in. Sunday followed with the usual kit issue, sled sizing and track walks to prepare for the weeks ahead. Previous sliders that had competed at Lillehammer before were quick to warn of the difficulty of the track, and the infamous turn 13, however all the sliders were raring to get on the ice bright and early on the Monday morning of week one.

Progression over the first week proceeded well, with most sliders progressing quickly from the turn 10 start up to turn 7, and the core of experienced sliders progressing upwards to the Junior Start. Bumbs and bruises were picked up throughout the first week, with a few hospital visits required to double check on some impacts, fortunately with only a suspected broken rib as the total of all the trips. Despite these minor niggle’s enthusiasm remained, and the sliders entered the weekend on a high. As has become tradition in the last two seasons the RN team constructed an Ice Bar for some R&R for all the teams on the Friday night, a chance for the athletes to get to know each other better and burn off some steam from the weeks training, sadly just not in quite a stunning location as the previous years in St Moritz, Switzerland.

Week two commenced, before long both the RN and RAFs Service Championships arrived on the Wednesday, before a race day warm up on the Thursday. Team draw was agreed as a team of four sliders, with three to count, sadly down to a number of retirements due to the nature of the track. Nevertheless, a good day of racing awaited on the Friday, with some seasoned veterans taking to the ice to attempt to retain their Interservice titles. A retirement early for the Navy with AET Laurence Mapar needing to retire due to an ankle injury left the field open for the Army and RAF to commence battle, and the closing slides saw just 0.6 seconds between the teams’ combined times, a very tight margin at the Inters level. Despite some exceptional sliding from a new Army novice LCpl Scott Pearson, securing Silver in the men’s race and pipping seasoned slider Flt Lt Scott Steele to the post, the Army missed out on the chance at knocking the RAF off their long-held podium. The team of Kibble, Steele, Burke and Dermidy proved too strong for the Army, and the RAF retained, well deservedly, their podium with a combined time of 328.868.

Post safe transits home the season closed, congratulations to all that competed at the Interservice level, in what is one of the most challenging sports on the ice, on one of the most difficult tracks we compete at. We look forward to another stellar season in the 25/26 period, and the likely track selection of Igls, Austria.