They came overnight, the masses of water, and you can see on an amateur video that they did not stay long with the given ideal line: With a loud roar, the dirty brown stream flowed a little down the slope through the gully that is a glittering World Cup ice channel in winter , in which world and Olympic champions train. Before the next bend, however, it broke out and poured itself in the darkness with all its force over the whole area like a huge waterfall.
The next day, on Sunday, Felix Loch posted a photo that made the damage clear, a confused mixture of rubble, tree trunks and bent metal, where the bobsleigh and toboggan run on the Königssee was still standing on Saturday. “It hurts infinitely”, wrote the three-time Olympic luge champion, and in English: “My heart is broken”, his heart is broken, hopefully everyone is healthy. “No words! It’s so sad,” commented Natalie Geisenberger, like Loch, multiple Olympic luge champion and world champion.
And Susi Erdmann wrote under a similar video: “Unbelievable … My former home track at Königssee is simply washed away.” Stunned on all social media channels. After numerous world championship titles in luge, Erdmann celebrated her second world championship in two-man bobsleigh here in 2004. Loch won three world championship titles in 2016, Geisenberger two on this track, which in 1968 was the first artificial ice rink in the world. Somewhere under the mud and boulders.
Live it looks no less devastating than in the photos, Deutsche Bahn boss Markus Aschauer assured on Sunday. The debris that was washed up by the otherwise small Klingerbach had carried away entire parts of the track by morning, and the bobsleigh riders’ starting house had also partially collapsed. Aschauer spoke of considerable damage, after all, nothing had happened to anyone. “It looks like a total write-off,” said Margit Dengler-Paar into the cell phone, then the communications manager of the world association FIL apologized politely – the fire brigade was waiting outside. Your house will be evacuated.
It is no coincidence that Thomas Schwab, the General Secretary of the Bobsleigh and Sledge Association for Germany (BSD), also arrived quickly in the disaster area; he had already inspected the area for the first time at 6.30 a.m. He, too, lives not far from the track, like so many who are important for German bobsleigh and luge sports. During the course of Sunday, tobogganing legend Georg Hackl was also spotted on what was left of his home track.
The runway was completely refurbished a few years ago and was in top condition. Now you need help with the reconstruction
In the afternoon, Schwab had a first overview. In the upper area, the railway was massively damaged and washed away; there are also huge spills and a deep trench that now runs through the terrain. It was already known from storms that the Klingerbach swelled, some things had already been built up there, but in a storm like this, he said, “you can block what you want, nothing can withstand it”. Schwab estimated that damage in the double-digit millions must be assumed in any case.
His railway operations manager Aschauer had already been there that night and put himself in danger, as Schwab critically noted, out of concern about the ammonia pipes. These are of course badly damaged, “but that was the unbelievable: They did not leak, almost sensational”. But there was no other danger, he assured, because there was no pressure on the lines.
In any case, nothing would take place here in the coming season, he could easily commit himself to that. October 2022 is the goal, which he thinks is feasible, says Schwab. In 2010 and 2011 the railway at Königssee was completely renovated as part of an economic stimulus program, for 30 million euros. “That is particularly bitter: Everything was so well rebuilt and in good shape.” Now one has to hope for help and support with the reconstruction. But of course the destruction of the facility is also bitter from a sporting point of view.
It would have been of central importance for the preparation for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in 2022, as a training location for many local top athletes, and national courses were planned here, which now have to be rescheduled. “And it’s a disaster for the youngsters too.” He was currently stuck in a traffic jam, Schwab announced that Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder and Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (both CSU) would come later to get an idea of the situation, initially in the residential areas, of course. At least on the railway no people were harmed. “Everything else,” said Schwab, “can be judged.”