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USA Luge Begins Selecting Next Seasons Squad with National Championships
By Jon Lundin // U.S. Luge Accociation // February 27, 2007
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. --- The 2006-07 international luge racing season has just concluded and the process to select next season’s squad begins with Saturday and Sunday’s, March 3-4, seeding race and Verizon U.S. National Luge Championships. Saturday’s race on the Olympic Sports Complex track, in Lake Placid, N.Y., begins at 9 a.m., while the national championship event on the 1,455-meter long track is slated to start at 8 a.m.
The two races are expected to feature nine sliders from the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, including Tony Benshoof (White Bear Lake, Minn.) and Courtney Zablocki (Highlands Ranch, Colo.). In Torino, Benshoof raced to a fourth place result in the men’s singles event, while Zablocki also finished fourth in the women’s singles race.
The two races will also debut USA Luge’s newest doubles team, of Matthew Mortensen (Huntington Station, N.Y.) and Preston Griffall (Salt Lake City, Utah), and men’s singles slider Bengt Walden (Lake Placid, N.Y.).
Prior to teaming up together in February, Mortensen had slid with teammate Garon Thorne (Orem, Utah), while Griffall was a teammate of Dan Joye (Carmel, N.Y.). Mortensen and Thorne were the 2005 overall junior (to age 20) World Cup doubles champions and 2003 Verizon U.S. junior national champions, while Griffall and Joye won both the 2002 and 2003 overall junior World Cup doubles titles, before finishing eighth at the Torino Olympic Winter Games.
“Both Preston and I had some success with our former teammates, but we both felt that we needed to make a change,” said Mortensen. “For the most part, we’ve been sliding well. Preston needs to make the biggest adjustment, from being the top driver to the bottom driver. He’s done it well so far, and I’m really excited about teaming with him.”
Walden will try to join the U.S. program after sliding for Sweden since 1988. The 34-year-old raced to a 23rd place finish during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games and this season his best finishes were ninth in a World Cup race and 13th at the 39th World Luge Championships, in Igls, Austria.
Benshoof has his sights set on his seventh-career men’s singles national crown, while Zablocki will try to capture her third consecutive women’s singles title. Mark Grimmette (Muskegon, Mich.) and Brian Martin (Palo Alto, Calif.) will defend their doubles title. The two have slid to six-career U.S. titles together.
The first two men’s singles and women’s singles sliders and the top doubles team from the two race point’s standings will earn a spot on next season’s senior team. The remainder of the team will be filled out later this spring.
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