The designated national toboggan coach Patric Leitner is following in big footsteps. After this season, the Olympic champion will take over Norbert Loch’s duties. During his tenure he collected 22 Olympic and 97 World Cup medals.
It is a demanding task that 46-year-old Patric Leitner will take on after this season. The 2002 Olympic champion is leading the German luge athletes as national coach to the 2026 Olympic Games. Games in which, two years before the start, it is still unclear on which track the toboggan and bobsleigh competitions will actually take place.
Current national coach Norbert Loch is sure that Leitner is the right person to succeed him: “Patric has had to endure many ups and downs in his own career. At the end of his career he fought hard to win a bronze medal at the Olympics. I was already a head coach back then and I was able to observe him for many, many years, worked with him a lot and he had what it takes. Above all, he is very, very talented technically.”
In the ZDF interview, Loch further explains that he would like to give his successor some time to get used to it and will initially be there to support him: “Of course I will still support him a little with organizational things, but he will be in charge.“
Leitner is ready
Leitner has also spoken out personally: “I’m really looking forward to it, it’s going to be an exciting task. I’m ready“said the former doubles player.”This is a decision that was not made overnight. I have a good team around me who all pull together.“
Above all, he took his hat off to the performance of Norbert Loch, who was already part of his coaching team: “Norbert deserves his retirement. We all owe him a debt of gratitude. The whole team and me too.“
After Olympic gold as an athlete, also Olympic gold as a coach?
Berchtesgaden native Patric Leitner won the overall World Cup seven times as a doubles player with Alexander Resch. He celebrated four world championship titles, but his greatest success was Olympic gold in Salt Lake City in 2002, and he didn’t even achieve Olympic bronze in Vancouver in 2010.
After his active career, Leitner passed the coaching exam at the Sports University in Cologne, and most recently he worked in the German Luge Association as a federal base coach in Berchtesgaden.
Leitner already knows a large part of the German toboggan team very well. Tobias Wendl, Tobias Arlt, Anna Berreiter and Felix Loch, among others, train at the Berchtesgaden base. The latter proved to be a big fan of his father’s successor in Altenberg: “We are then very, very well positioned. We have a very, very good successor. I’m not worried about the next few years.“
First recovery, then hole succession
But Leitner will have to be patient a little longer before he can really get started, as he is currently in the hospital with a broken leg. He was injured while playing badminton with the team in a sports hall in Altenberg.
Just a small setback for Leitner before he sets out to fill Norbert Loch’s big shoes.