Delaney: Hamlin not thinking Vancouver - yet
Erin Hamlin knows the Olympics are coming.
She can't help it with training and paperwork, and there are more people and more of a buzz around the Lake Placid U.S. Olympic Training Center where she lives. The Vancouver games are seven months away. Hamlin pre-qualified with her World Championship title earlier this year. She needs a top 5 finish or better in one of the first four World Cup series races this fall to lock up a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
Hamlin is in a much different place now than she was in 2006, when she unexpectedly raced onto the team that competed in Torino, Italy. Hamlin is the top-ranked U.S. women and many in the USA Luge organization expect her to be a member of the team next winter.
Hamlin isn't yet looking at Whistler - the British Columbia, Canada resort town where the luge competition will be. Whistler's permanent population is about 10,000. It's 2.5 hours from Vancouver, B.C. and about 5 hours from Seattle, Wash.
"For sure, the races before that are definitely in front of my mind because I need them to make the Olympic team," Hamlin said. "Really I’m focusing on the races that happen first but in the long run I’m focusing on them to do well so I can be in the Olympics."
Hamlin has stayed at the Olympic training center through most of the spring and summer to make the most of her training opportunities. Everything she needs is in Lake Placid - the start house, the trainers, the weight facilities. It's not always easy being isolated up in Lake Placid, though her family is only 2 1/2 hours away, but as Hamlin says: "If I really want to be the best, it's the most logical place to be."
Hamlin, born Nov. 19, will celebrate her 23rd birthday a day before the season-opening World Cup series race in Calgary, Canada. Series stops 2-6 will take the team to Europe before breaking for pre-Olympic training in Park City, Utah. The second series race is Nov. 24-29 in Igls, Austria. Hamlin had a career-best fourth-place finish in Igls last year. The rest of the pre-holiday schedule is: Dec 1-6, Altenberg, Germany; Dec. 8-13, Lillehammer, Norway. Racing will resume Dec. 29-Jan. 3, 2010 in Koenigssee, Germany, followed by stops in Winterberg and Oberhof before wrapping up in Cesana, Italy Jan. 26-31.
Official Olympic training begins Feb. 10. The men's singles are Feb. 13-14, women's singles Feb. 15-16 and doubles on Feb. 17. Olympic luge is a two-day event with four runs, unlike World Cup series races. U.S. National team coach Miro Zayonc said all luge events used to be two days but the races were cut back for convenience and for television. A four-run competition is a greater challenge, "a good test," Zayonc said, because the mental side of the sport takes over especially for an athlete in a good place after Day 1. Going to bed with the lead might not make for a restful night.
"Then you have to sleep on it and you have to wait on it," Zayonc said. "It's difficult, the nerves the expectations."
She can't help it with training and paperwork, and there are more people and more of a buzz around the Lake Placid U.S. Olympic Training Center where she lives. The Vancouver games are seven months away. Hamlin pre-qualified with her World Championship title earlier this year. She needs a top 5 finish or better in one of the first four World Cup series races this fall to lock up a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
Hamlin is in a much different place now than she was in 2006, when she unexpectedly raced onto the team that competed in Torino, Italy. Hamlin is the top-ranked U.S. women and many in the USA Luge organization expect her to be a member of the team next winter.
Hamlin isn't yet looking at Whistler - the British Columbia, Canada resort town where the luge competition will be. Whistler's permanent population is about 10,000. It's 2.5 hours from Vancouver, B.C. and about 5 hours from Seattle, Wash.
"For sure, the races before that are definitely in front of my mind because I need them to make the Olympic team," Hamlin said. "Really I’m focusing on the races that happen first but in the long run I’m focusing on them to do well so I can be in the Olympics."
Hamlin has stayed at the Olympic training center through most of the spring and summer to make the most of her training opportunities. Everything she needs is in Lake Placid - the start house, the trainers, the weight facilities. It's not always easy being isolated up in Lake Placid, though her family is only 2 1/2 hours away, but as Hamlin says: "If I really want to be the best, it's the most logical place to be."
Hamlin, born Nov. 19, will celebrate her 23rd birthday a day before the season-opening World Cup series race in Calgary, Canada. Series stops 2-6 will take the team to Europe before breaking for pre-Olympic training in Park City, Utah. The second series race is Nov. 24-29 in Igls, Austria. Hamlin had a career-best fourth-place finish in Igls last year. The rest of the pre-holiday schedule is: Dec 1-6, Altenberg, Germany; Dec. 8-13, Lillehammer, Norway. Racing will resume Dec. 29-Jan. 3, 2010 in Koenigssee, Germany, followed by stops in Winterberg and Oberhof before wrapping up in Cesana, Italy Jan. 26-31.
Official Olympic training begins Feb. 10. The men's singles are Feb. 13-14, women's singles Feb. 15-16 and doubles on Feb. 17. Olympic luge is a two-day event with four runs, unlike World Cup series races. U.S. National team coach Miro Zayonc said all luge events used to be two days but the races were cut back for convenience and for television. A four-run competition is a greater challenge, "a good test," Zayonc said, because the mental side of the sport takes over especially for an athlete in a good place after Day 1. Going to bed with the lead might not make for a restful night.
"Then you have to sleep on it and you have to wait on it," Zayonc said. "It's difficult, the nerves the expectations."
posted by Anne Delaney at
5:37 PM
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