Jr. Luge team heads to Konigssee

Jr. Luge team heads to Konigssee for World Championships

By Aidan Kelly

After a week and 8 runs down the track in Oberhof the USA Junior National Luge team is leaving with their hopes high for World Championships. The races in Oberhof proved to be quite rewarding for former NSA student, Emily Sweeney (18) who took second in the junior women’s category (female sliders up to age 20). Tucker West(16) and Aidan Kelly(17) of NSA took 19^th and 22^nd  in the junior men’s race.

In every world  cup race there is usually a team race or challenge cup. A team race would consist of one Junior male from each country slider taking a run from their start, one Junior Woman slider taking a run from her start and a doubles team taking a run from their start. All their times would then be added together and the team with the fastest combined time would be the winner. Challenge cup, however is a race between ten athletes in the Junior Men’s Junior Women’s and Junior Doubles disciplines. The race (for money) is a single elimination race where athletes are paired up and race off in order to attempt to make it to the second round. When two athletes are paired up they race off and the one with the slower time is eliminated. However, with 10 sleds starting out that would leave and uneven amount of matchups for the second run. So the slider who beat, his/her/their matchup but, had the slowest time of all the sliders who beat their matchups, will also be eliminated.

. Ty Andersen and Aidan Kelly of USA were paired to race one another in the first round of the Oberhof  “challenge cup.”  Although Ty layed down a time faster than Aidan or himself had ever gotten, Kelly managed to best him by just two hundredths of a second to hopefully move himself into the second round. Alas, the second round was no place for Kelly, who ended up 5^th in the race. “The unlucky winner” as many referred to him as, is a term used by Luge athletes to describe sliders who beat their matchup in a challenge cup but were too slow to move on to the second round. Emily Sweeney, managed to take first in this race with teammate Kate Hansen not too far behind taking second

At the end of every Junior World Cup season overall points leaders are awarded a trophy and while our Junior men and Junior doubles teams were nowhere to be seen on the podium Emily Sweeney,(although seen standing on the 3^rd place podium due to a points counting error) earned herself enough points to be ranked 2^nd place in the world amongst all Junior Womens sliders. This ranking may have given her the confidence she needs going into Junior World Championships.

Konigssee, Germany will be the site of this years Junior world championships in the sport of luge. Although luge is little know by folks in the United States, Luge is a huge sport here in Germany and the race should draw a large crowd. The team has a training week in Konigssee the week prior to world championsips weekend in order to learn the track better and give them a better shot a medals going into this years race.