Pyeongchang, South Korea • Every athlete at the Winter Olympics is hyper-competitive. Most are obsessive. And a good handful are borderline masochists, subjecting themselves to pain and punishment in pursuit of a dream. But few, it seems, are as nosy as the people on the luge track.
“There are always people peeking over their shoulders at other people’s sleds,” American Tucker West admits.
And people are looking at what Team USA has brought to the Games for the first time, well, just about ever.
Chris Mazdzer slid across the finish line and through a barrier that had been unbreakable for more than 60 years Sunday night, becoming the first American man to ever medal in the sport. His silver medal was won with experience and feel as he navigated the hard ice through turn No. 9 that knocked out plenty of other competitors. But by Mazdzer’s own equation for success, any win on the track does not come with talent alone.
“I used to think the sport was one part start, one part sliding and one part sled,” the Massachusetts native said in the run-up to the Games. “It’s really 20 percent start, 30 percent sliding and 50 percent sled. It’s really gotten to the point where the sled is the most important, your relationship with it, how it reacts.”
And for the first time in the history of U.S. Luge, the Americans feel they are on par with the rest of the world when it comes to sled technology.
“It’s pretty exciting to see where we’re at as opposed to where we were a few years ago,” said Erin Hamlin, the woman most consider the best luge athlete the U.S. ever has produced. “It’s fun to think we can go into a race and be on a level playing field with the people with the best equipment in the world.”
Hamlin’s bronze-medal run in Sochi, Russia, the first U.S. athlete to ever podium in the discipline, was cause for celebration. The success that has followed her historic win has been even more important for her country’s future in the sport. Luge officials point to their relationship with Dow Chemical as a pivotal moment.
“We made some serious developments three year ago with our sleds,” Mazdzer said. “Instantly, we were winning medals. We were finally able to play with the rest of the world.”
Their sleds are now more uniform. Where parts once were made by hand, they now are made using a 3-D printer.
“It’s perfect,” doubles athlete Jayson Terdiman said. “We’re able to trade parts with each other and try different setups a lot easier than we would in the past.”
There also has been a greater emphasis on data collection and analysis to help the athletes better prepare for weather and track conditions, guiding them on how to adjust the bow of the steel or the way their sled’s runners are set up by time-saving millimeters.
“Those tiny details make such a difference,” Hamlin said. “Just that knowledge has made us leaps and bounds better.”
Ask for too many specifics, though, and you’ll be shut down.
“We’ve got to keep that hush-hush,” Hamlin said.
Terdiman and his sliding partner, Matt Mortensen, know well the importance of secrecy in their sport. About two years ago, the two Olympians bought a sled on their own, a purchase they didn’t even tell their own organization about. They quietly contacted a German sledmaker, gauged his willingness to help out a pair of Americans and struck a deal.
“I wanted to see, just for my own piece of mind, is their equipment faster than ours right now,” Terdiman said. “It came out of the box faster than what we were riding.”
The sled drew looks from competitors at World Cup events. They knew it was German-made. But who made it for them?
U.S. Luge hired the sledmaker, former German luge Olympian Andre Florschuetz, as a consultant last July
Moments after his historic silver-medal run Sunday night, Mazdzer reflected on all the sacrifices and efforts he and his team had made in the past. Then he turned his attention forward.
“It’s incredible,” he said about the moment. “I see some good things in the future for USA Luge.”
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