Georg Hackl: Austria's German 'professor of luge'

George Hackl is a legend in the sport of luge, having won Olympic gold three times plus two Olympic silver medals and 10 World Championship titles. They were all claimed, as one would expect, for his native Germany. After he retired, it seemed a natural progression when he joined the German national team's coaching staff, enriching the program with his eye for detail. 

Even while he was still racing, he was always the guy who was tinkering with his sled more than his competitors or teammates, all in an effort to gain an edge by somehow squeezing out a few thousandths of a second on the ice track. 

This is one of the key reasons for Hackl's success both as an active luger and now as a coach. At last February's Winter Olympics in Beijing, Germany's lugers won gold medal in all four events. 

Fresh start across the border 

So it must have come as quite a surprise to many, when in the summer of 2022, the now 56-year-old Hackl took the decision to leave the German Bobsleigh, Luge, and Skeleton Federation (BSD) and move on to the Austrian Luge Federation (ÖRV). 

Markus Prock, once one of Hackl's biggest rivals on the ice track is now President of the ÖRV. For years, Prock had tried to convince Hackl to move to the ÖRV, but over and over again Hackl had declined, in part due to his job in the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). 

However, by the time Prock approached Hackl in October 2021 he had retired from the Bundeswehr and Hackl found the offer from his former rival so intriguing that "I was happy to take this last chance in life to change professionally."  

More money, more free time 

As an athlete and later as a coach, Hackl's calendar was always full. Almost always on the road during the winter months, he also spent countless hours in the workshop during the summer, tinkering with his sled for the next winter. This meant that Hackl's private life too often took a back seat to his career.

"You can't really manage it, and you're always putting off a certain backlog of things you want to do," Hackl told DW. 

His new job is not only better paid, which Hackl readily admits, but it also gives him more free time, especially in the summer, to catch up on all those things he'd put on the back burner for all those years.

In the past, Hackl was deeply involved in the design and construction of the German sleds. However, as the ÖRV works with a sled manufacturer, now he merely exchanges ideas with the engineers, letting his years of experience flow into the process.  The ÖRV then takes delivery of prefabricated sled components, which the federation's training team then assembles – keeping Hackl's hand in a part of the process that he still loves. 

The secret to a fast sled 

Even though it may look simple to the layman, a luge sled is a complex piece of engineering. Since the goal is to get down the ice track as fast as possible, aerodynamics is a key consideration. This also means that it "has to fit together very well with the rider's body," Hackl said. 

This is among the lessons that the three-time Olympic champion learned early in his career. 

"Luge is a sport in which the equipment is a performance-determining factor," he said. "If you can grind the rust off the runners or polish out scratches on the runners, you get faster." 

Every successful luger develops an intimate relationship with the runners on his or her sled, spending countless hours grinding and polishing them during a season. Their geometric shape is crucial for sliding resistance. 

"The steel edges of the runners have to be just sharp enough so that they don't dig too deep into the ice," Hackl explained. "So that the sled can glide well, but still have enough grip that you don't slide crosswise during the run. It's as simple as that." 

Changeable ice quality 

The subtleties in the grind of the steel edges are only apparent to lugers and their technicians. The choice and machining of the runners also offer plenty of scope for tactics. After all, they are the interface between the sled and the track. 

"The ice quality of the track changes fundamentally in changing weather conditions under certain circumstances, even during the course of a race, within a quarter of an hour," Hackl said. "Therefore, even during a race, you have to pay attention to whether, depending on the starting position, it wouldn't be wiser to mount different runners." 

It's always a difficult calculation even for a professionals like the 10-time world champion "because it's very, very difficult to precisely assess the exact ice quality at the respective starting time."

Working towards 11th Olympics 

It is the details that continue to fascinate the "luge professor," although this wasn't so much the case early in his career.

"As a young athlete, I thought: 'Wow, my sled is so fast, you simply can't improve it,'" he conceded. "Today, I know better." 

His job now is to use his experience to ensure that Austria's lugers don't make such avoidable errors in judgement as they prepare for the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2026. His contract with the ÖRV runs through those Games, which would be his 11th Olympics. Until then, Hackl will continue to tinker as he aims to break the German dominance in luge, something that he helped establish over decades, not only at the 2026 Games but in the long term.

This article was translated from German.