The event, which will be held at the Mount Van Hoevenberg luge run, will be the first of nine stops on the FIL luge World Cup tour that will include the World Championships in Altenberg, Germany.

“It’s great to have the season opener,” USA Luge and Marketing Director and Olympic silver medalist Gordy Sheer said. “I think to my knowledge, I think this is the first time we’ve ever opened a season in Lake Placid — or in the United States for that matter. It will be nice to kick things off and hopefully that will help us get some more eyeballs on the event.”

This village was previously scheduled to host luge World Cups in 2020 and 2021. The planned World Cup in 2020 was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, while the 2021 World Cup was moved to Krasnaya Polyana, Russia — the site of the 2014 Sochi Olympic track — due to COVID-19 concerns.

Mount Van Hoevenberg, the site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games, has hosted 16 luge World Cups and two World Championships since 1983. The track held a World Cup each year between 2013 and 2019.

“It’s really great to be back on our home track in Lake Placid for a World Cup,” USA Luge CEO Jim Leahy said in a statement. “We’ve had a lot of success on this track over the years, something we expect to continue this year with our athletes taking advantage of their extensive knowledge of the Lake Placid track as they compete for podium finishes.”

The World Cup will feature singles and doubles competitions for both men and women, as well as a sprint competition, according to Sheer. This will be the first time Lake Placid has held an FIL World Cup women’s doubles event, since it made its World Cup debut last season. Women’s doubles is slated for its first Olympic Games in 2026 in Italy

Sheer said he doesn’t know what the official schedule will look like — as to which events are on each day — but it will be “ironed out in the coming weeks.”

The USA Luge team comes into the season with an experienced group riding the momentum of last year’s successful World Cup campaign that resulted in nine medals and 58 top-10 finishes.

“We’re definitely looking forward to hosting a race here,” Sheer said. “It’s been a while and this is a track that a lot of our athletes grew up sliding on. It’s always nice to have home ice advantage, which is important in our sport.”

Lake Placid resident Emily Sweeney, a two-time Olympian going into her 12th season, led the women’s team in 2022-23 with World Cup medals in three different disciplines and a fifth-place overall finish. Teammate Summer Britcher is a three-time Olympian who has five career World Cup victories, the most in U.S. luge singles history.

Zack DiGregorio and Sean Hollander, the 2023 under-23 World Champions, will be joined by the duo of Dana Kellogg and Frank Ike representing Team USA in men’s doubles. Hollander is a Lake Placid resident who teamed up with Digregorio in the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games.

“For me and Zach, in particular, we’ve never raced in Lake Placid (at a World Cup event) so we’re super excited,” Hollander said on Thursday. “To be able to race in front of our friends and family it’ll be the first time for a lot of us”

Sophia Kirkby, of Ray Brook, teamed with Chevonne Forgan, of Massachusetts, to earn a women’s doubles bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships and a silver at the World Cup event in Latvia last season. Kirkby and Forgan finished fifth overall in the season standings.

The USA Luge men’s singles team is led by Olympians Tucker West, Jonny Gustafson and Chris Mazdzer. West, a three-time Olympian from Connecticut, placed 10th in the overall World Cup standings last year and has three World Cup victories on his resume. Mazdzer, who grew up in Saranac Lake, captured a silver medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Gustafson, a Massena resident, is in search of his first World Cup podium after coming close with a fourth-place finish in Park City, Utah last season.

Last year’s World Cup season was dominated by Germany as Julia Taubitz swept the women’s singles disciplines and the doubles duo of Tobias Werndl and Tobias Arlt captured each of the men’s doubles titles. Felix Loch of Germany won the men’s singles overall title, while Dominik Fischnaller of Italy took the men’s singles overall title and was the men’s singles sprint champion. The Italian team of Andrea Votter and Marion Oberhofer earned the top overall position in women’s doubles.

Prior to the competition days on Friday, Dec. 8 and Saturday, Dec. 9, there will be more than a week of training in Lake Placid that brings in athletes and coaches from the competing nations and provides an economic boost to the hospitality industry during a typically slower time. USA Luge is also expected to host a start competition during the week at its newly renovated headquarters on Church Street in Lake Placid.

Hollander said the season opener is always a super exciting time.

“We get to see what all the other countries have been developing over the summer and we get to see where we stack up. It’s always a fun ride,” he said.

The luge World Cup may be the first of three major World Cups that Lake Placid will host this season. Currently, a bobsled and skeleton World Cup, along with, ski jumping World Cup are in the works and could potentially be held in Lake Placid this winter.

“I think it’s great that we’re kicking off the Lake Placid World Cup season,” Sheer said. “(Potentially) having three world-class events in winter is pretty neat. There aren’t a lot of places in the world that can claim that.”