LOCALadk Magazine

42 Winter 2017 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk The X XIII Olympic Winter Games (to be held in Pyeonchang, South Korea in 2018) are fast approaching, and you can sense the heightened intensity in hopeful Olympic athletes' men- tal and physical training regimens. As a freelance photographer based in Lake Placid, I have had the good fortune of meeting with and photographing several of our winter Olympians. The more time I spend around these young athletes, the more impressed I am. It's not just the years of training they've devoted to their respec- tive sports, and the many sacrifices that they've made, that I respect. It's their willingness to pay it for ward. For exam- ple, recently at Dewey Mountain I witnessed several of our local Nordic athletes spend an entire afternoon signing auto- graphs for, and playing games (including a paintball biathlon) kids in the Dewey Mountain cross countr y ski program. Two longtime USA Luge athletes that I've had the pleasure of getting to know are the doubles team of Matt Mortensen and Jayson Terdiman. Both Matt and Jayson competed in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, but with differ- ent partners. Jayson slid with Christian Niccum and finished in 11th place, while Matt and his teammate Preston Griffall were 14th. Within a week of returning from the Sochi Games and with both of their teammates retiring, Matt and Jayson immedi- ately began sliding together. From their first training runs, they gelled, posting times better than what they'd achieved with their previous partners. Matt and Jayson were both de- lighted to share with me that it wasn't until their 20th run on the Lake Placid track that they bumped one of the track walls. This is no small accomplishment. The track at the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Sports Complex has a reputation of being among the toughest doubles tracks in the world. Luge was inaugurated as an Olympic sport in 1964 at the IX Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. Luge is rec- ognized as the fastest sport on ice. Sliders reach speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour while sliding down a track that is approximately a mile long. It's the only sliding sport that is measured to 1/1000th of a second. In the United States there are two full-length, certified, Olympic-style luge tracks: one in Lake Placid, NY; the other in Park City, Utah. During World Cup and Olympic luge events athletes gener- ally compete in four categories: Women's Singles, Men's Sin- gles, Men's Doubles, and Team Relay. In the sport of doubles luge it's essential that the two athletes continually work in Sliding to Success Story and Photos By John DiGiacomo

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