LILLEHAMMER, Norway — Augusta’s Julia Clukey raced to a fourth-place finish at the preseason Lillehammer Cup held recently on the 1994 Olympic luge course.
The race, featuring the world’s top competitors in the sport, capped off a week of overseas training for the U.S. team.
Erin Hamlin of Remsen, New York, who won the U.S. team’s first Olympic singles medal in luge with a third-place finish at Sochi, Russia, in February, came from behind to overtake Julia Orlamuender of Germany and win the gold medal at the Lillehammer Cup.
“Everything came together really well. I just aimed to be consistent and comfortable,” Hamlin told USA Luge. “The runs weren’t ideal, considering I had really good training most of the time. In the first run my lines at the top of the track were a little bit off, which costs a lot here. Second run was a lot better, but I had to work a little bit harder for the clean run than I would have liked.”
The 2014 Olympic bronze medalist found speed at the bottom of the Lillehammer course, which will host a World Cup event this winter and the 2016 Youth Olympic Games. Hamlin posted times of 48.674 and 48.969 seconds for a combined 1 minute, 37.643 seconds.
Orlamuender won the opening run by 0.17 of a second over Hamlin before settling for the silver medal in 1:37.737. Andrea Voetter of Italy finished third, 0.23 of a second behind Hamlin.
Clukey, a 2010 Olympian and 2013 World Cup silver medalist in Lake Placid, New York, as well as a seven-time winner of the team’s annual start competition, was third at the halfway mark of the race, trailing Hamlin by just 0.01. She then lost time at the end of the final run and dropped to fourth overall, nearly 0.4 of a second behind her teammate.
Dominick Fischnaller of Italy won the men’s competition, with 2014 Olympian Tucker West of Ridgefield, Connecticut, the top American finisher in sixth place.
Most of the U.S. team is off the ice this week as Lake Placid prepares to open its track, weather permitting, on Saturday.