Athlete Bios
Luge
Hamlin now a luge medal contender
Last Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010 | 1:16 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
American luge slider Erin Hamlin is an Olympic contender in a sport heavily dominated by German athletes. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images) Erin Hamlin, a native of Remsen, N.Y., made history on her home track by setting a course record en route to winning the luge world championship in February in Lake Placid, N.Y.
She finished in one minute 28.098 seconds. To everyone’s amazement, she snapped a streak of 99 straight victories by German women, who had not lost since 1997.
“I started riding in 2000, and coming through the years, you always saw these German sweeps,” Hamlin told The Associated Press. “To be the person to break it is pretty amazing.”
At the 2010 Olympics, Hamlin will no longer be able to sneak up on the competition. She finished 12th at the 2006 Turin Games and will look to use her world championship performance in 2009 for momentum.
“Her winning at worlds definitely gave me hope,” Hamlin’s teammate Kate Hansen told The Associated Press. “I’ve always had hope, but just to see her finally do it, it was like it told all of us that, yeah, we can do some damage at the Olympics; it can be possible. I strive to be like Erin, because she wasn’t really fazed by all the stardom that she got.”
Hamlin entered the sport at age 12 when she enrolled in USA Luge’s Slider Search program. She worked her way up from the development team and raced on the Junior World Cup from 2002 to 2005.
