Anyone who owns a sled knows how important good runners are for perfect sledding fun. For the lugers at the Olympic training center in Oberhof, perfect equipment is much more than just a guarantee of fun. The perfect steel is a basic requirement for the fastest time in the ice channel. That’s why the pros are counting on our experts for high-performance steels from voestalpine High Performance Metals Germany at the 2026 Olympic Games.
At the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, the German luge team, equipped with voestalpine material, won 4 gold and 2 silver medals, and at the 2021 Luge World Championships, it won several medals. One of the best-known names currently using material from voestalpine High Performance Metals Germany is the current world champion Max Langenhahn. With four track records, the luger already won Olympic gold in the singles on February 8, 2026—and with it the first gold medal for Germany.
In luge, both athletes and equipment are exposed to extreme stresses – athletes race through the ice channel at speeds of over 150 km/h. Years of research, development, and training precede such peak performances. For many years now, colleagues at voestalpine High Performance Metals Deutschland GmbH have been working with both the Olympic training centers in Oberhof and Berchtesgaden to further optimize the complex sports equipment through innovative technologies and make it even faster. The key to this is the precise coordination of materials and technical support for the individual athletes and their sports equipment.
The solution was found in the broad portfolio of BÖHLER Edelstahl, where a material was selected that was originally developed for aerospace applications. This steel also has high wear resistance and is cold formable. A special powder metallurgical steel from BÖHLER is also being used successfully.
But it is not only the material of the sled that is crucial on the road to Olympic victory, but also the behavior of the pilots. Changing their position for better cornering in steep turns resulted in more turbulence and thus more head movement. Forces of 5G act on the athletes here. To remedy this, Eschmann Textures, a subsidiary of the High Performance Metals Division specializing in surface treatment and based in North Rhine-Westphalia, is working on special structures for the surface of sports equipment. They are using their expertise from aviation and motor racing for this purpose. By using and
As previously reported, our material is also used in Olympic speed skating—not only the bimetal bohlerstrip from voestalpine Precision Strip, but also the high-performance steels from High Performance Metals. Most of the top 20 short track teams and some of the long-distance skaters use skates from the manufacturer Kushi, which relies on HPM steels.
Die voestalpine ist ein weltweit führender Stahl- und Technologiekonzern mit kombinierter Werkstoff- und Verarbeitungskompetenz. Die global tätige Unternehmensgruppe verfügt über rund 500 Konzerngesellschaften und -standorte in mehr als 50 Ländern auf allen fünf Kontinenten. Sie notiert seit 1995 an der Wiener Börse. Mit ihren Premium-Produkt- und Systemlösungen zählt sie zu den führenden Partnern der Automobil- und Hausgeräteindustrie sowie der Luftfahrt- und Öl- & Gasindustrie und ist darüber hinaus Weltmarktführer bei Bahninfrastruktursystemen, bei Werkzeugstahl und Spezialprofilen. Die voestalpine bekennt sich zu den globalen Klimazielen und verfolgt mit greentec steel einen klaren Plan zur Dekarbonisierung der Stahlproduktion.
