West Helps Team to Bronze Medal

West Helps Team to Bronze Medal

By Aidan Kelly

Although his singles race did not go as Tucker West had planned, he pulled himself together and helped his team cap a third place finish in the team competition Saturday, In Winterberg, Germany. Team competition may be proving to be West’s strong suit after taking gold in the first ever Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck Austria just one week prior.

The four person team of Tucker West, Emily Sweeney and the doubles team of Ty Andersen and Anthony Espinoza took the bronze just one day after they all had their own singles races.

On Friday morning temperatures were below freezing and it seemed the perfect storm was brewing for a good race day. This “storm” of good weather, however did not bode well for our Men’s singles team consisting  of Aidan Kelly(17), who finished 21^st in this race, Anthony Espinoza(18) finishing 26^th, Ty Andersen(17) finishing 16^th as well as Tucker West who made his debut appearance sliding Junior mens singles (male sliders up to age 20)finishing 20^th just .04 seconds ahead of Kelly who is currently ranked 14^th in the world.

Although the weekend did not go so well for our Men’s team, NSA former student, Emily Sweeney (18) was able to keep her composure on race day and earn herself a Bronze medal in the Junior Women’s singles division. Although Sweeney had hoped for better she said she was more than happy to get a medal and keep her spot as one of the best in the world. Sweeney, currently ranked 3^rd in the world.

Ready to get some runs on the track in Oberhof, Germany the team packed up their things Saturday night in preparation for a Sunday morning drive to the world famous track. The oberhof track was the first in the history of the sport of Luge to have had a refrigeration system and has been said to be one of the most challenging in the world. Aidan Kelly has plans to take a first person video of the track as he goes down in order to show what it is like.

With high hopes of fast race runs and safe sliding the team takes their first runs on the legendary track, Tomorrow.