Canada's luge relay team of Embyr-Lee Susko, Devin Wardrope, Cole Zajanski, Theo Downey, Kailey Allan and Beattie Podulsky watched with bated breath on Saturday night as Chelsea Forgan and Sophia Kirkby slid through Curve 16, a.k.a. Thunderbird Corner, at the Whistler Sliding Centre (WSC).
The American doubles unit was well off the pace, but still had an opportunity to leapfrog their rivals into podium position.
Forgan and Kirkby reached up to strike the finishing paddle that hangs above the track for relays…but not quickly enough. The Canadians were mobbed by teammates and coaches, their jubilant screams blending into hearty cheers from fans. It was official.
The field's youngest squad had just guaranteed itself a World Championships medal on home ice, uniting for a four-run time of two minutes and 51.641 seconds. It is the Maple Leaf's first team relay podium since 2016 and the fifth ever.
That medal turned out to be bronze, as Germany flew in for gold (2:50.361) and Austria wrapped up silver (2:50.492).
We are family
Aiming for a top-six result going in, Susko and company are thunderstruck to actually earn hardware.
"It hasn't even sunk in," revealed Susko, who placed fourth on Friday in ladies' singles. "My teammates are all basically my siblings at this point in life, so it proves how much of a big, happy family we really are. The hugs going around, the cheers, it's truly incredible."
Downey isn't keen on physical contact, but even he was swept up in the moment. "You've got to be in there with your second family, basically. This team is all you've got for half a year and it finally pays off: all that hard work."
Havoc abounded during the week's final discipline, with several nations committing uncharacteristic errors.
The United States ended up fourth after Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa skidded out, generating an insurmountable deficit for their peers. Italy false-started and were disqualified outright, forcing Olympic bronze medallist Dominik Fischnaller out of action. Even the powerhouse Germans and Austrians had some difficulty with Whistler's lightning-fast ice.
Most shocking of all was the crash absorbed by Marta Robezniece and Kitija Bogdanova. The Latvians were helped off track after flipping their sled.
Canada had its own mishap as Allan and Podulsky fishtailed out of Thunderbird Corner, just as they'd done racing women's doubles 24 hours earlier. Already banged up from that event, they held it together by way of grit and poise.
"Honestly, the only thing going through my head was 'hit that pad,'" said Podulsky. "The whole team was riding on us…and you know, we did that so everything just happened to come together."
Allan was likewise thrilled: "I’m literally at a loss for words right now. We love racing with this team. Devin and Cole have helped us so much with learning to slide doubles. Everyone did their part."
'The stars aligned today'
Sam Edney knows how it feels to win team relays.
Luge Canada's high-performance director joined Alex Gough, Tristan Walker and Justin Snith in netting an unprecedented Olympic silver at Pyeongchang 2018. All except Snith were on hand to watch their successors rise up.
"This is a huge step for our group," Edney said. "It started yesterday with Embyr and a momentous result for her with fourth. It's a thing of momentum—I mean, we're a gravity sport. That's the beauty of the team relay: it's about consistency over necessarily being the absolute fastest. You have the gate, you have the pad. You have to be perfect for a bit longer than you normally are because the pad is further than the finish line.
"We're a team that can compete with some of the biggest nations in the world…and if we hammer that into the athletes' minds and they produce repetitively, it shows what can happen."
Zajanski is oldest among the underdog Canadians at 23, but the only number that matters is the placement on the results sheet.
"The stars aligned today," he said. "We're a young team, and just having [Sam, Tristan and Alex] here supporting us, saying how proud they are, gives us confidence that we're able to step up to the plate when it matters. We're showing our mentors that they've done well and we've taken what they said to heart."
Everyone deserves credit: Susko and Downey on their respective singles sleds as well as Wardrope and Zajanski in men's doubles, but Saturday's bronze does not materialize without Allan and Podulsky. They filled a void left by the retirement of doubles slider Natalie Corless, which drove her partner Caitlin Nash down the singles route.
Not long afterward, Susko emerged as a singles ace—which meant the dissolution of her old tandem with Podulsky last year.
Edney and his coaching staff knew that Allan/Podulsky was going to be an experiment with no guaranteed outcome. Their patient approach to developing both youngsters over nine weeks contributed to success in Whistler, at the first Luge World Championships to feature ladies' doubles in the relay.
"Even from when [Kailey and Beattie] first started to now, they have come so far," Wardrope remarked. "Cole and I are just happy we could help them in any way we can, because that's the same help we got from Tristan and Justin when we were first starting off. Being able to mentor another doubles team, and then having the six of us come together and place a medal is amazing."
Susko added: "Though me and Beattie don't slide doubles anymore, that holds a really special place in my heart. When I get to race relay with Beattie again, it makes me so happy to be able to celebrate with one of my best friends."
Back to back
Nobody, not even three-time Olympic gold medallist Felix Loch, could prevent Max Langenhan from defending his men's singles title.
Langenhan blasted through two Saturday afternoon runs in one minute and 39.922 seconds total. His fellow German Loch earned silver (1:40.057) and Nico Gleirscher of Austria held onto bronze (1:40.144).
"Last year, Altenberg was one of my favourite tracks," said Langenhan in reference to his maiden World Championships victory. "Here in Whistler, normally it's every time so (expletive) close and every small mistake costs you so much time—but in the end, I'm super happy with these two runs. In the first run, I had some mistakes at the last few corners, but…I'm a back-to-back world champion. I couldn't imagine more."
Regarding Loch, who won the 2010 Olympics in Whistler at just 20 years of age, Langenhan added: "He's the best teacher in the world. You can imagine: so many athletes want him in their teams because he's putting so often good runs down in training. If you have questions for lines in the track, you can every time ask him. You can learn a lot from him."
Langenhan then joined his compatriots Julia Taubitz, Hannes Orlamünder, Paul Gubitz, Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal to dominate the team relay.
Canada failed to qualify an athlete into the top 20 for run number two. Downey just missed out in 22nd and Dylan Morse ended up 26th. Notably, 18-year-old Bastian Van Wouw placed 28th out of 30 athletes in his first senior international event.
"Not getting that second run was a big dampener on my day, but going down the track [for relays] lets you relax a lot more. You can just focus on what needs to get done," said Downey. "And Bastian joined luge probably three years after me. I've always been there for him, and he's always been there for me."
For more Worlds results, visit https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/53rd-fil-world-championships.
