LAKE PLACID, New York — Just when the temperatures seemingly couldn’t get hotter in the Northeast comes the start of the winter sports season.
Sort of.
Julia Clukey of Augusta, Maine, and other members of the USA Luge national and junior national teams are set to gather in upstate New York next month for the annual start competition, meaning that a new racing season is fast approaching.
Clukey, a 2010 Olympian, is among the world’s quickest from the start handles and hopes to use that ability to return to the World Cup podium. Now in her 18th campaign, Clukey achieved a silver medal in February 2013.
“The start competition is a good way to evaluate where I stand physically for the upcoming season,” said Clukey in a news release. “With World Championships in Koenigssee (Germany) this year, the start absolutely makes or breaks a chance for a top performance. With it taking place a few weeks before our on-ice training starts, it’s a good transition back into competition mode.”
Clukey, 30, has a team-high seven indoor start titles in Lake Placid as well as four international championships, which are contested annually in Meransen, Italy.
The start race, on the team’s artificially refrigerated ramps, will be held Friday, Sept. 18, approximately one month from when the competitors return to the full-length track at Mount Van Hoevenberg just outside Lake Placid.
A number of recent Olympians will join Clukey in the field, led by Sochi bronze medalist, 2009 world champion and three-time Olympian Erin Hamlin of Remsen, New York, along with Summer Britcher of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, and Emily Sweeney of Suffield, Connecticut.
Sochi Olympian and two-time start champion Tucker West heads up the men’s field along with fellow 2014 Olympian Aiden Kelly.
The Norton National Championships will be held in late October and early November in both Lake Placid and Park City, Utah. The World Cup luge tour opens for the 2015-2016 campaign on Nov. 28-29 in Igls, Austria.
