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Grimmette and Martin earn USA Luge nomination to 2006 Olympic Winter Games
By Jon Lundin // U.S.A. Luge // December 9, 2005
CALGARY, Canada --- The U.S. doubles luge team of Mark Grimmette (Muskegon, Mich.) and Brian Martin (Palo Alto, Calif.) can now begin thinking about racing in their third Olympic Winter Games. Friday night, Dec. 9, in Calgary, Canada, the pair slid to their 11th-career luge World Cup win and secured a nomination to the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.
The two-time Olympic medalists overcame high winds, mild temperatures and a fifth place, first heat run en route to a combined time of 1 minute, 27.912 seconds. “The race conditions were certainly different from what we were training in this week,” stated Martin. “Throughout training, it was cold, but tonight it was much milder… not optimal race conditions. I was really disappointed after our first run, but we were fortunate that no one was really clean or had a solid opening run.”
Before Friday night’s win, the pair had opened the season with 13th, ninth and 10th-place World Cup finishes and were ranked 11th overall in the series standings. “It’s nice to get this Olympic selection process out of the way,” remarked Martin. “I don’t think that it was weighing on either Mark or I, but it was something that we were thinking about.”
Latvia’s Andris Sics and Juris Sics captured their first-career World Cup medal, silver, and trailed Grimmette and Martin by .062 seconds after racing to a combined time of 1:27.974, while Austria’s Tobias Schiegl and Markus Schiegl slid to bronze in 1:28.032. USA Luge’s Christian Niccum (Woodinville, Wash.) and Patrick Quinn (Lombard, Ill.), and Preston Griffall (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Dan Joye (Carmel, N.Y.) finished 11th and 16th, respectively. Nicccum and Quinn slid to a total time of 1:28.679, while Griffall and Joye stopped the clock in 1:29.882.
Silke Kraushaar raced to her second win of the season and led Germany to its 60th consecutive women’s singles World Cup victory. Kraushaar, who also won the series opener in Sigulda, Latvia, raced to a total time of 1:33.613, while her teammate, Tatjana Huefner, slid to a silver medal finish after recording a combined time of 1:33.641. Barbara Niedernhuber completed Germany’s podium sweep, racing to bronze in 1:33.733. Fellow German, Sylke Otto set a new track record, 46.543, but finished fourth.
USA Luge’s Courtney Zablocki (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) raced to a team-best ninth place result after scoring a combined time of 1:34.228, while fellow American Samantha Retrosi (Saranac Lake, N.Y.) finished 12th, in 1:34.490. Teammates, Erin Hamlin (Remsen, N.Y.) and Ashley Hayden (Westborough, Mass.), slid to 13th and 20th-place finishes, respectively. Hamlin completed her two runs on the 1988 Olympic course in 1:34.584, while Hayden recorded a two-run time of 1:38.387.
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