KOENIGSSEE, Germany –- Emily Sweeney, a Falmouth native living and training in Suffield, Connecticut, continued her march up the World Cup luge ranks by sliding to a career-best fourth-place finish Saturday in the snowy, picturesque Bavarian resort in the south of Germany.
Koenigssee celebrates the traditional 12 days of Christmas with a yearly stop on the international luge tour. On the 11th day, Sweeney, the 2013 junior world champion, nearly hopped on the podium in front of a large holiday audience.
“My training this week was about 50-50,” said the 21-year-old Sweeney in a USA Luge press release. “Each day I’d have a good run and a dud of a run. I didn’t have two clean runs consecutively until today.
“But I’ve done this before and needed to do what I know how to. I wasn’t trying to do anything crazy or get extra time. I was just trying to have two solid runs.”
Sweeney then went on to help the U.S. to a silver-medal finish in Sunday’s team relay, joining with men’s singles standout Chris Mazdzer and the doubles tandem of Matt Mortensen and Jayson Terdiman to place behind Germany and ahead of Canada in the weekend’s final competition.
“I was a little more nervous today than usual,” said Sweeney after participating in her first World Cup team relay. “I hadn’t been nervous in any of the races this year so this was a little different for me. It was nice to have a team aspect to it. We do an individual sport, but this is the only time when we’re really a team. It was cool to work with other people.”
Sweeney finished eight-hundredths of a second from a top-three finish in Saturday’s women’s singles event. She has improved her finish in each race so far this season, starting with a seventh in Igls, Austria, followed by a fifth-place effort in Lake Placid, New York.
Natalie Geisenberger of Germany, the reigning Olympic and world champion, scored her fifth victory of the season and the 28th win of her career, this coming on her home track.
Geisenberger finished 0.35 of a second ahead of runner-up Alex Gough of Canada. Third place went to Dajana Eitberger of Germany.
Augusta native and resident Julia Clukey, a 2010 Olympian, placed 24th.
The American squad entered the Koenigssee World Cup weekend after a two-week holiday break and had just five official training runs this week instead of the usual six. The number of practice runs was curtailed because of a snowstorm earlier in the week that hit the previously dry Alps.
“I know I was at a disadvantage with the lack of training, but it makes it even better when you do well,” said Sweeney, who had not raced on this classic and difficult layout in more than a year. “That’s what I was going for. We had to rely on our instincts. We know how to slide and you have to show up. So today I tried to show up.”
Also, a change in her off-season training continues to pay dividends for Sweeney, who was in the Olympic mix in both 2010 and 2014, only to be eliminated on both occasions. In a special race-off for the Vancouver squad in 2010, her sister Megan grabbed the final Olympic berth.
The Geisenberger runaway for yet another World Cup points title is under way as she clocked runs of 50.723 and 50.688 seconds for a combined 1 minute, 41.411 seconds.
Sweeney registered 1:41.960 on the strength of the fourth-best heat times in each run. Her starts were in the top 10 of both attempts, and she gained time from there to the finish.
“You have to get the rhythm of the ‘S’ turns,” she said. “If you’re behind, it’s difficult to get back on line. Coming out of S4, there’s a long straightaway that’s not very straight. If you’re off, it’s painful because it’s really hard to get it back. But if you come out of there straight, good for you.”
As the top American she was scheduled to get her first World Cup start in a team relay Sunday afternoon.
Sochi Olympian Summer Britcher of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, was 12th overall in 1:43.118, while Olympic bronze medalist Erin Hamlin of Remsen, New York, was 14th in 1:43.320, and Clukey was timed in 1:46.523.
Hamlin ranks fifth in the World Cup point standings (341), with Sweeney seventh (255), Britcher 13th (160) and Clukey 17th (137).
USA Luge will spend the next week training in Koenigssee, site of the 2016 World Championships. The World Cup tour resumes Jan. 17-18 in Oberhof, Germany