It's Germany in control at women's luge -- again

[February 16, 2010]  WHISTLER, British Columbia (AP) -- They came slowly down the start ramp that nobody wanted to use, the world's best women's luge racers wobbling like rookies through the initial curve.

Germany's Tatjana Huefner handled it all like a champ.

Putting Germany halfway to a sweep of Olympic singles luge gold, Huefner is the midpoint women's leader at the tragedy-stricken Vancouver Games, her two-run time of 1 minute, 23.241 seconds providing a cushion of a mere 0.050 seconds ahead of Austria's Nina Reithmayer.

Another German, Natalie Geisenberger (1:23.400) is third.

"I need to concentrate on me," said Huefner, this season's overall World Cup champion who's primed to become German's ninth women's gold medalist in 13 Olympic luge competitions. "Hopefully, I can have two good runs. We'll see if it's gold."

As for American hope Erin Hamlin, her medal hopes all but vanished into frosty Canadian night air.

Hamlin needs two great -- really great -- runs just to have a medal shot.

And even that probably won't be anywhere close to good enough.

The reigning world champion from Remsen, N.Y. bobbed up and down the track at the start of her second run, costing her an eternity of time in a sport typically decided by hundredths of seconds. As such, she's 15th through two runs, not even in the top half of the field, 0.813 seconds off the lead and more than a half-second away from third.

Still, she's conceding nothing.

"It's still a race," Hamlin said.

True. It's just not the race anyone expected.

Following the high-speed death of a men's slider in training last week, Olympic women's lugers are starting from the junior ramp, a move that made their course 800 feet shorter than planned.

They're safer for the switch, because there's simply less time for them to pick up speed. And just about every woman in the field is frustrated by moving farther down the track, since the junior ramp is a very short distance away from Curve 6, which is the first one the women need to navigate.

"Everyone tries to make the best of it," Geisenberger said.

And no one, not even the homestanding Canadians, felt like they had enough time to master that new start position.

"I worked for two years at what was the women's start," said Canada's Meaghan Simister. "And now to go into what basically is an ice wall, it's tough."

Not for the Germans.

Nothing about luge ever seems tough for them.

Felix Loch and David Moeller took gold and silver when the men's title was decided Sunday. And their countrywomen -- the sport's absolute queens -- surely have to be thinking about what would be a third straight Olympic women's luge podium sweep for their homeland.

After Huefner, Reithmayer, Geisenberger and Russian surprise Tatiana Ivanova, the No. 3 German in the field, Anke Wischnewski, is fifth entering Tuesday.

Hamlin's beaten them all before.

But facing this sort of deficit, well, suffice to say she's on a really slippery slope now.

"Could have been better," said Hamlin, who snapped Germany's 99-race winning streak by taking the world title in 2009 on her home track in Lake Placid, N.Y. "We're halfway done and we'll see what happens."

Julia Clukey of Augusta, Maine is 16th and Megan Sweeney of Suffield, Conn. is 27th through two runs. Japan's Aya Yasuda was disqualified after the first run because she carried too much weight on her sled, and Romania's Mihaela Chiras crashed out of the competition in her second run. She walked away, appearing unhurt.

The Americans were hurting too, for different reasons.

"I'm angry, and I want to use words," Sweeney said. "But I want to control myself."

How dicey is that start? Put it this way: Hamlin, who finished the year fourth in the World Cup standings and is a medal threat on just about any track in the world, was 16th in the final training run from the switched start position, all because she didn't hit that first curve precisely along the proper line.

Not the best way to go into the Olympics.

And some sliders said the lower start means anything can happen -- and anyone can still be in the medal hunt.

"I wouldn't be surprised if a Latvian got on the podium or a Ukrainian got on the podium or a Russian got on the podium," Simister said, talking about three nations that typically aren't exactly gold contenders in women's luge. "It's a whole new ball game. It's anybody's game now because the regular start is obsolete. Now it's up to that one corner and who can do it without making a hockey stop."

The medal formula now is simple. Good start, you'll have a chance. Bad start, you're off the podium -- a lesson Hamlin learned the hard way, after her time to the first checkpoint in Run 2 was about four-tenths of a second slower than her first try, a colossal amount of time in luge.

"Better start ... very important here," Huefner said.

And it's important to note, while many grumbled about the lower start, no one questioned the logic behind the move.

"Safety first," Reithmayer said. "We can't change it."

[Associated Press; By TIM REYNOLDS]

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