Norbert Hiedl has been appointed as the first ethics officer of the International Luge Federation ©FIL

 Norbert Hiedl has been appointed as the first ethics officer of the International Luge Federation (FIL).

The 68-year-old German was elected at the governing body's 65th Congress in Constanța in Romania.

He will now be in charge of all ethics issues related to the sliding sport.

His election was mandated at the FIL's 2016 Congress in Lake Placid in the United States, where an ethics code of conduct was introduced.

This was developed by the FIL's legal counsel Christian Krähe, who worked alongside Hiedl.

A new code of ethics has been introduced in luge ©Getty Images
A new code of ethics has been introduced in luge ©Getty Images

The pair gave delegates a general outline of the code while in Lake Placid, a two-time host of the Winter Olympic Games.

At the 2016 Congress, the FIL confirmed that its Legal Committee would take over the tasks of the Ethics Commission on a temporary basis until the meeting in Constanța.

In future, the ethics officer will be elected at the Congress held in the same year as the next Olympic Winter Games.