Despite battling the flu during last weekend’s Norton National Championships, Augusta’s Julia Clukey was named Tuesday to USA Luge’s fall 2014 World Cup squad.
The women’s team is led by 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Erin Hamlin of Remsen, New York, who was ranked sixth in last season’s overall World Cup standings.
Hamlin will be joined by fellow 2014 Olympian Summer Britcher, the 20-year-old from Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, Clukey, a 2010 Olympian and former World Cup medal winner, and 2013 junior world champion Emily Sweeney, a Portland native who resides in Suffield, Connecticut.
The World Cup schedule begins Nov. 29-30 at Igls, Austria, then moves to Lake Placid, New York, on Dec. 5-6 followed by final pre-Christmas stop on Dec. 12-13 in Calgary, Canada.
Clukey placed fifth in the Norton National Championships’ two-day, four-run competition on Lake Placid’s Olympic course last weekend while recuperating from the flu. Hamlin won the event for the fifth time in her career.
Clukey, the 2012 Norton Nationals champion who earlier this fall won the national start competition for the seventh time in her career, entered last weekend’s competition exempt from qualifying for the fall World Cup team.
Norton Nationals men’s champion Chris Mazdzer of Saranac Lake, New York, Tucker West of Ridgefield, Connecticut, and Aidan Kelly of West Islip, New York, were named to the fall U.S. World Cup men’s team.
The newly crowned Norton Nationals champion pairs competitors Matt Mortensen and Jayson Terdiman also earned World Cup team berths.
The American contingent will remain in Lake Placid for another week before heading west later this month to continue training in Calgary, Canada, and Park City, Utah.
