During the 1970s, the
Soviet Union found success in luge with
Vera Zozula,
Dainis Bremse,
Algars Kirkis, and
Sergey Danilin at the
Winter Olympics,
FIL World Luge Championships, and
FIL European Luge Championships. By 1986, a
track at
Sigulda in the
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (now
Latvia) was completed which allowed
bobsledders and
lugers to compete. Following the
breakup of the Soviet Union in late 1991, which included
Latvia's independence a year earlier, the Sigulda track became part of Latvia as a result. This caused Russia's bobsleigh and luge program to suffer throughout most of that decade. In the late 1990s, Russia began to gather success again in bobsleigh, luge, specifically with
Alexandre Zoubkov and
Albert Demtschenko who won a total of two
Winter Olympic medals (both at the
2006 games), four world championship medals (all by Zoubkov), and three
European luge championships medals (all by Demtschenko). Russia also won a world championship medal in skeleton in
2003. Because of the success of the Russian sliding teams, it was decided to construct not one, but two new tracks. The first would be near Moscow while the second one would be in
Krasnaya Polyana with the latter part of
Sochi's bid to earn the
2014 Winter Olympics. The
foundation stone was laid down in February 2007. By July 2007, 400 meters of the track had been completed. Track construction was completed in December 2007. Official opening of the track occurred on 10 March 2008. Construction cost for the track was
USD45 million. The Russian national championships also took place during that time. Over 100 runs were performed from the three different start houses (Men's singles, Women's singles/ men's doubles, and juniors) without any accidents occurring. Homologation for the track was given for this event on 8 December 2009. The first bobsleigh and skeleton competition took place at the track on 21 March 2010. Since winter 2015/2016 track is not frozen, all training and competitions are moved in
Sochi ==Statistics==