Grimmette and Martin doubles’ teammates will include Christian Niccum (Woodinville, Wash.) and Patrick Quinn (Lombard, Ill.), and Matt Mortensen (Huntington Station, N.Y.) and Preston Griffall (Salt Lake City, Utah). Niccum and Quinn return to international racing after taking the 2006-07 season off, while Mortensen and Griffall are looking forward to their first season together. Mortensen slid with Garon Thorne (Orem, Utah) last season, while Griffall was teamed with Dan Joye (Carmel, N.Y.).

Tony Benshoof (White Bear Lake, Minn.), a two-time Olympian, Bengt Walden (Lake Placid, N.Y.) and Chris Mazdzer (Saranac Lake, N.Y.) will make up the U.S. men’s singles lineup. Benshoof captured one World Cup bronze medal last season, in Altenberg, Germany, and has won 35-career international medals.

Walden joins the U.S. squad after spending his past seasons with Sweden, where he finished 23rd at the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games, while last season, his best finishes were ninth in a World Cup race and 13th at the 39th World Luge Championships, in Igls, Austria. Mazdzer is expected to move back and forth between the senior and junior World Cup tours again this season (his last as a junior). Last season he raced to the 2007 overall junior (to age 20) World Cup bronze medal.

Erin Hamlin (Remsen, N.Y.), a 2006 Olympian, leads the women’s singles team, which also includes Julia Clukey (Augusta, Maine), Ashley Hayden (Westborough, Mass.), Samantha Retrosi (Saranac Lake, N.Y.), Courtney Zablocki (Highlands Ranch, Colo.), Megan Sweeney (Suffield, Conn.), Amanda Allen (Lynbrook, N.Y.) and Brenna Margol (Sawyer, Mich.). Hamlin captured the team’s only international medal last season, a Challenge Cup silver in Park City, Utah, while Hayden enjoyed four top-10 World Cup finishes in 2006-07. Clukey returned to international competition for the first time in a year-in-a-half during the second part of last season and promptly raced to a career-high fifth place World Cup finish, in Koenigssee, Germany, before finishing eighth at Worlds. Retrosi and Zablocki are each looking forward to another season on the senior tour. Retrosi raced three times in 2006-07, recording three top-20 results, while Zablocki scored three top-10 finishes in nine events. Margol is eying a possible return to the World Cup tour after spending the last two seasons on the Nation’s Cup squad, while both Allen and Sweeney will be rookies on the team. Both were juniors last season.

As the World Cup tour only allows for the entry of four women’s singles sleds per nation into each event, still to be determined later this spring, will be a method in which USA Luge will select which women will actually race in the fall events.