Anne Delaney, Observer-Dispatch

Luger Erin Hamlin’s life has changed. A World Championship will do that.

She raised the profile of the sport and her herself with a surprising victory last February in Lake Placid.

Now, it’s six months to Vancouver.

Midway between her biggest career victory and the sport’s biggest stage, Hamlin is maintaining her focus on becoming a better luger. Instead of taking time off after the season,

Hamlin stayed at the United States Olympic Training Center here through the spring and summer.

Hamlin’s existence, at times lonely in the Biosphere 2-like atmosphere of the training center, is something she endures to be ready for the start of the World Cup season in November.

She says she is not ready to think about Whistler, the ski resort town north of Vancouver where the luge competition will be in February.

“For sure, the races before that are definitely in the 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 needs a top five finish in one of the first four World Cup races later this year to lock up a spot on her second Olympic team. She approaches those races with expectations much higher than before the last Winter Olympics, where she finished 12th.

Strength and technique

The World Championship win last February, one day after she left the practice track with a migraine, snapped the Germans’ 99-international race winning streak with a track-record second run. Hamlin’s victory attracted the attention of The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.

Yet she appears unaffected by her higher name recognition. A photographer’s request to clip a microphone to her back during offseason training last month drew a simple “yes.”

Here, in the heart of the Adirondacks, it’s back to basics.

At least three times a week, Hamlin has reported to the refrigerated USA Luge start house in Lake Placid for training. She dresses in helmet, an old racing suit and sits on an old sled.

The start, the most important part of a luge run, has been the focus of Hamlin’s workouts. Strength and technique is critical at the top of the track, and even the reigning World Champion needs practice.

Her summer has been a physically demanding routine of low impact, high repetition exercises.

On some days, she’s been challenged to get out of bed in the morning. Three days a week, there has been weight training with core and upper body work. Other time is spent on agility, sprints or drills for reaction and strength.

“Then come September, when the season starts, we put everything together and we get explosive,” USA Luge head strength and conditioning coach John Kaus said. “We’re doing repetitions of two to three heavy weights and being quick. The start is one pull, so we’re going from high reps and working toward that one pull.”

Hamlin’s commitment to stay in Lake Placid was easier because of its proximity to Remsen.

The 2½ hour drive allowed her to come home most weekends, so Hamlin has the convenience of self-contained training and a break for the comforts of home.

“It’s a great facility,” Hamlin said of the training center. “I can have everything I need and it’s really the most logical. If I really want to be the best, it’s the most logical place to be.”

‘It’s very intense’

There used to be multiple training camps, but USA Luge reduced it to one as United States Olympic Committee organizational stipends freed up athletes for more training, and the athletes began to look for breaks in their schedules.

“We respect the fact that the athletes live together, for six months out of the year and by the time you get to March, you’re sometimes ready to part company,” USA Luge executive director Ron Rossi said. “But we still think it’s good to bring everybody back together for a week, just to remind you that we as group prosper when everybody is working together.”

Down a well-traveled path from the training center is the modest, one-story USA Luge office building. The start house is in the back with three ramps for start training. On one ramp, Hamlin has worked with USA Luge head coach Wolfgang Schaedler.

Hamlin and Schaedler, a three-time Liechtenstein Olympian, study a computer revealing Hamlin’s times at different points on the ramp. Other work is hands-on. Schaedler manipulates Hamlin’s arms and shoulders into correct angles. The coached want her to feel what position her body should be in.

Later, Hamlin said she could feel the difference between a good start and a bad one. Putting the pieces together at the start is equal to finding an effective golf swing.

If I find a way to do it faster, I’m going to stick with it,” Hamlin said.

Six months to Vancouver.

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