Sledding is an activity millions of kids and adults love to do in the winter. But take that sled and ride it feet-first down an icy track at almost 100 mph, and that is a sport by another name — luge. And it is no piece of cake. Just ask luger Erin Hamlin. The two-time Olympian — who is about to start an intensive training schedule with the hopes of heading to Sochi with Team USA next year — knows all about cake… and cookies and cupcakes. The winter athlete has a love for baking that started long before her luge career eight years ago.

“My mom and my grandmother are very good at baking,” she said, “so it was one of those things I grew up doing. And I enjoy it a lot. It’s so far removed from sports and my life as an athlete that it’s nice to be able to take my mind off all that.”

Her mom — who lives only three hours away from her daughter’s training center in Lake Placid, N.Y. — still bakes with her only daughter in mind. “My teammates have experienced a lot of my mom’s baking skills because she always sends stuff. So now if I walk down the hall with a box, I’ll suddenly have a lot of friends.” Not that she minds, because as she says, “It’s not necessarily the best thing to have baked goods hanging around all the time when you’re trying to train. So I spread the wealth. I’ll take them to our office and down to the staff around the training center.”

Now she is able to bake the sweet stuff for herself thanks to “a little kitchenette they put in the training center a couple of years ago.” And balancing her training on the ice with her time in the kitchen is helping her with a longtime dream of hers — besides the one she has of earning an Olympic medal one day. This one she has been trying to achieve since she was a little girl, and it requires her to beat her grandma at her town’s annual baking contest.

“In my town in New York there is a baking contest held during the annual arts and crafts fair, and anyone can enter. I did it a couple of times when I was younger (and competed in the kids category), but my mom and grandma have always done it. And my grandma wins almost every year. As I got older I thought I could beat grandma, since I was finally able to try things that were a little more crazy. One year I made chocolate cupcakes with sweet cream cheese filling and a chocolate ganache, and made them to look like the flower, Black-Eyed Susan.”

But despite putting forth a good effort — and a second place finish — she has yet to beat grandma.

A dessert you will probably never see her attempt — even if it could mean earning that top title — is one that involves fruit. “I love fruit. And I love chocolate. But something about putting them together is not at all appealing to me.” Rather what does appeal to her is using Team USA sponsor, Chobani Greek yogurt when she cooks.

“The thing I make all the time is Chobani pancakes. I love pancakes. But sometimes breakfast is hard because I’m always trying to gain good weight, and pancakes are not the best things — especially when I need things like protein and fruit. But if I put Chobani in the pancake batter, it justifies having pancakes.”

If you couldn’t tell, the self-admitted chocoholic is always looking for ways to satisfy her sweet tooth. Take her favorite travel snack — trail mix — for instance. “Trail mix is great because I can put in some M&M’s or chocolate chips and it’s still an okay snack because of the nuts and stuff.”

Though thankfully she is not in a sport that she says has “super strict dieting, which is convenient for me.” But her sport does require her to travel a lot, which makes it hard for her to spend much time in the kitchen. “A pipedream I have is to own my own little bakery/cake shop down the road. But it’s not something I can do yet because of being in a different place almost every other week.”

One of the places that she has spent a lot of time in recently is the host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. “I’d been to Moscow before,” she recalled, “but I was shocked when I first visited Sochi. I didn’t expect it to be so gorgeous. And I think because everyone focuses on how Sochi is like a subtropical climate and there are palm trees on the Black Sea — I didn’t think about these massive mountains that we’re going to be up in. It’s really pretty, and if it all comes together like they plan, it will be great.”

Unfortunately, Hamlin knows first-hand how not all well-laid plans come together. The 26-year-old is someone who has had a lot of ups and downs in her professional career since staring in 2005. Her first Olympic Games came in 2006 in Torino, where she placed 12th. But after winning gold in 2009 at World Championships — beating out the Germans who had taken the top spot for the previous 99 races — she was thought to be a top medal contender for Vancouver.  However her second Olympics did not see her fare any better, and she earned a disappointing 16th-place finish. It was also the year that the devastating and fatal accident of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili proved that the sport was not only difficult, but also extremely dangerous

She calls the track in Sochi “awesome,” but also “very different from anywhere else. The track is going to make it hard to go fast, so it’s all going to come down to all the tiny details — which makes you want to pull your hair out sometimes.” But she said she’s trying “not to think too far ahead.” Especially as this Olympics will be different. “I don’t feel as much pressure. I have a lot of expectations for myself going in, and obviously I really want to come back strong. I’m putting a lot of work in to do that, but I don’t want to do anything too drastically different because I know what’s worked for me in the past — you know the whole, if it’s not broken don’t fix it? At the same time you never know what you’re capable of until you try. But I feel comfortable where I am in my career now and confident knowing what I have to do to be at my best.”

The world will be watching in nine months’ time to see if she’s found the perfect recipe for success.

http://www.teamusa.org/Road-to-Sochi-2014/Features/2013/May/07/Erin-Hamlins-Career-Is-Cooking.aspx

Erin Hamlin, Olympian and World Champion luger, talks to her students from Salt Lake City, UT about what it takes to be a leader. She mentions having a vision and passion and the ability to ignite passion in others. Leaders communicate really well and treat others with fairness and respect. Erin challenges her students to find some situations where they can test their leadership abilities so they can assess and then refine their leadership skills. (video)

Despite all the twists, turns and aerial acrobatics, the final results of Saturday’s Dumont Cup was a simple flip in the standings.  Nick Goepper took the top spot for the second time in three years. Gus Kenworthy, last year’s winner, finished second. Josh Christensen took third for the second year in a row.

An Indiana native, Nick won the day with a final score of 95, giving him two of the best scores of the afternoon. He posted a 93 in his first of three runs.

“It’s awesome to win,” said Goepper, who was fourth in 2010 and has been in the top two every year since. “It’s more of a mellow and relaxed vibe than all the other ones. It’s springtime. It’s usually pretty sunny. You have soft, slushy snow. The New England crowd comes out. So that makes it a little more mellow than some of the bigger contests, but it’s still a platinum event. It still carries a lot of weight. It’s still great to have these grassroots events on the East Coast.”

Goepper is coming off a strong rookie season in 2012. He won a silver in the Winter X Games and won a slopestyle event on the Winter Dew Tour in Utah. He was an amateur when he won the event in 2011.

Kenworthy has had a multitude of podium finishes and was one of only two skiers to compete in three divisions in the Winter X Games in 2012, reaching the finals in two of them. He won the North Face Open in Canada in a superpipe event last year. His other pro wins include a pair of wins in the New Zealand Winter Games in 2011, both the slopestyle and superpipe.

After semifinals in the morning, the field was narrowed for the afternoon’s finals. Goepper upped the ante right away with a 92 on his first run.

“I was looking for something I could land for sure and get all my grabs,” said Goepper. “Then I left room to step it up.”

Kenworthy was a close second after the first run. He had posted a 92 while Christensen had a 91.

“The second run I tried to step it up by adding a right side double,” said Kenworthy, who had a pair of doubles on the final two jumps but couldn’t top the 93. “It was a little sloppy though, and it wasn’t enough.”

Christensen earned a 91.7 on his third jump. Goepper followed with a strong effort on his final try.

“I tried to step it up on my second run, and I wasn’t successful,” said Goepper, who crashed on the final jump on his second run. “Then I stepped it up on my third run.”

He added a 1260 and a different rotation to his repertoire on the final effort and scored a 95.

“I was so happy,” said Goepper. “I didn’t know what the judges were going to do. I’m stoked that I got a 95.”

Kenworthy heard the announcement of Goepper’s score just before his final run. On his third effort, Kenworthy had hoped for his best attempt, but a slip on the landing on the second jump changed that. He finished with a 92.7.  “I was going to try to dump out a triple on the last jump, but I landed really sloppy on the second jump,” said Kenworthy. “So I decided to bail.”

Kenworthy won last year’s event with a 96. Goepper had taken second with 94.

“I knew he had a 95,” said Kenworthy. “Even without that score, it would have been hard to overtake him without doing something crazy. That was the plan, but it didn’t work out. Ninety-five’s a pretty good score. It’s as high as you could ever get. Ninety-seven is as good as you could expect to get. So I knew it would be hard to beat him.”

The slushy course made landing a challenge at times. A number of the competitors wiped out, nixing any hopes of a high score.

Goepper, Kenworthy and Christensen were part of a group of a dozen professional skiers and nearly 80 amateur skiers who came to Maine for the largest freeskiing event on the East Coast, and the only platinum-level slopestyle event recognized by the Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP).

The Dumont Cup was founded by X Games gold medalist and 2014 Olympic hopeful Simon Dumont of Bethel.

This is a story about a guy who finished last. Which is technically true. You can look up the results of the race, and you’ll see his name, right there, lonely at the bottom. Taylor Phinney. USA. Finishing time of six hours, twenty-two minutes, fifty-four seconds. One hundred-and-ninth place. Last.

But this story is better than that.

First, about Taylor Phinney. Remember that name. You might already know it. Bike racer from Boulder, Colo., 22 years old. The son of two cycling legends, Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter. A big dude on the bike, at 6 feet 5 inches, 180 pounds, Taylor Phinney is one of the most promising young cyclists in the world. He’s already been to the Olympics twice. Won a stage of the prestigious Giro d’Italia last year. He is expected to have many great days in the sport. Monday didn’t begin like one of those days. Phinney was competing in Italy’s Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, and this penultimate stage was a doozy. Up and down, down and up, 209 kilometers of punishment, including a 27% climb so comically steep that some riders got off their bikes and pushed them uphill. Many riders quit. Later the race organizer would admit that the stage was too difficult, even for elite pros.

Phinney didn’t expect to win this stage. He just wanted to hang around, because the next day brought a time trial against the clock, and Phinney had a chance for a good result in that event. But the day soon unraveled. His legs weren’t feeling great, and then his bike busted its chain. He had to get a replacement and chase his way back to the pack.

“I just was dangling,” Phinney said on the phone, from his home in Tuscany. “We kept going over these really difficult climbs. I’d get back to the group and I would get dropped. I’d get back again, then get dropped.”

Bike racing is a sport that fetishizes suffering. Anyone who’s done it talks almost mystically about painful days on the bike, about the serenity achieved by pedaling through the agony. But even the best can only take so much. Soon Phinney found himself in a small group of 30 or so riders who had fallen off the main field, with about 130 kilometers, or 80 miles, left. The riders in the group began talking. Phinney said it became clear that nobody wanted to finish. Drop out now, get out of the cold. This is no shame. It happens all the time. Fight another day.

But Phinney wanted to fight now. He had to complete the race under the time limit to do the time trial Tuesday. “If I wanted to finish the race, I was going to have to do it by myself,” he said.

So that’s what he did. As the rest of the group abandoned the race, Phinney put his head down and pedaled. He was suddenly alone. The weather was miserable. It began to rain. And Phinney kept thinking of one thing.

“I would just think of my dad,” he said.

Davis Phinney has lived with Parkinson’s disease for more than half of Taylor Phinney’s life. One of the great American racers of all time, a Tour de France stage winner and Olympian, Davis’s day is often met by frustrating physical challenges. Tasks that were once simple take so much longer. Ordinary life requires patience.

That’s what kept his son pedaling in the cold Italian rain.

“I knew that if my dad could be in my shoes for one day—if all he had to do was struggle on a bike for six hours, but be healthy and fully functional—he would be me on that day in a heartbeat,” Taylor Phinney said. “Every time I wanted to quit, every time I wanted to cry, I just thought about that.”

He had so many miles to ride. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said. “The race has gone by, and people aren’t really expecting one rider slogging along by himself.” Fans on the side of the road offered to push him up hills. But Phinney remembered a story his Dad had told him about one of his old Tour de France teams, making a pact to decline pushes.

Taylor would do the same. No pushes.

“He never lost his motivation,” said Fabio Baldato, an assistant director for Phinney’s team, BMC Racing, who was driving a car behind Phinney the entire route. “It was unbelievable.”

“He wanted so badly to finish the race,” said Phinney’s teammate, Thor Hushovd, a former world champion.

Hours later, Phinney crossed the line, exhausted. He finished almost 15 minutes after the second-to-last rider, thirty-seven minutes behind the winner. He didn’t make the time cut for the day, which meant he couldn’t compete in Tuesday’s time trial. It was a bummer, but Phinney was too zonked to be devastated. During his post-race massage, he cried like crazy. On Twitter, Phinney wrote about riding for his Dad and called it “probably the most trying day I’ve had on a bike.” When Phinney’s saga was reported on the website VeloNews, cycling fans went crazy. These have been bleak times for the sport, ripped apart by doping scandals. Phinney’s solo effort—and his emotions post-race—had stirred something soulful. “Emotion is powerful and undeniably human,” Phinney’s mother, Connie Carpenter, said in an email from Italy.

Back home in Colorado, Davis Phinney was marveling at the whole story. You can still find Davis on his bike, usually on the fancy carbon-fiber city commuter he got from his son. Cycling remains a sanctuary—”easier than walking, in a sense,” he said. But the daily routine remains full of hassles. Davis Phinney keeps a sense of humor about it, jokingly referring to himself as “Turtleboy.” He began a foundation to give people living with Parkinson’s tools for living well—for achieving little victories.

Davis Phinney said he didn’t learn about Taylor’s ride until after it was over. Friends told him how inspired they were by his son. When he heard that Taylor had been thinking about him the whole time, he was floored.

“I have almost no words for how amazing it makes me feel,” Davis Phinney said. He wrote in an email to his son:

You make me so happy and beyond proud—and that is better than any medicine and can defeat any disease.

The results are wrong. This is not a story about a guy who finished last. Taylor Phinney won that race.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578358780883339720.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

“We’re very excited to have Steve and David as part of the SHADE GLOBAL family and are looking forward to working with them both. Steve is one of the best bobsled athletes in the world heading into Sochi 2014.  He is training harder than ever to make his second Olympic Games as part of the elite “Night Train” bobsled team.  David’s talent was really illuminated at the 2012 London Olympics with a bronze medal win in the synchronized 10m platform, and then a gold medal for 10m Platform dive. They are both outstanding athletes and role models with very promising futures, said Sheryl Shade, President of SHADE GLOBAL.”

Regarded as one of the sport’s best athletes, Olympic bobsledder Steve Langton has won 13 World Cup medals, 2 World Championship titles, and has several National & World Push titles to his name.

Since the 2010-2011 season, Langton has been a strong force behind the elite “Night Train” 4-Man bobsled team piloted by Steven Holcomb, in addition to being Holcomb’s brakeman in the 2-Man event. Langton and Holcomb won the 2-Man at the 2012 World Championships, marking the first time the U.S. had ever won a Gold medal in the event. Days later, Langton and the Night Train team claimed Gold in the 4-Man event.  With this victory they also became the first American team to win both the 2-Man and 4-Man events in the same World Championships.

Steve attended Northeastern University where he captained the track & field team, excelling in both the 100m and jumping events, and graduated in 2006 with a B.S. in Management. He was set to attend law school in Boston but decided it wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. He worked for his family’s land development company and volunteered as a track coach, yet felt unfulfilled.  He knew that at 6’2” 225lbs, his Olympic aspiration as a sprinter was unrealistic and was motivated to find a sport that would better suit him.  Bobsled was the first sport that came to mind.

Inspired by watching the 2006 Olympics, Steve filled out an online application and attended a U.S. Bobsled recruitment camp. It didn’t take long for him to push his way onto the team, earning a spot on the World Cup circuit in his first competitive season in 2007.  He was named 2008 U.S. Rookie of the Year before winning the 2009 U.S. National Push Championship. Since then, Langton has emerged as one of the best push athletes in the world.

Steve was named to the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team for the Vancouver Games where he competed in both the 2-Man and 4-Man events with pilot John Napier (Team “USA 2”). They finished 10^th in the 2-man. Due to injuries sustained during USA 2′s crash on day one of the 4-man event, Langton and his team did not race on the second day of the competition. Steve has used this as constant motivation to work hard and be one of the best in the world heading for the next Olympics.

He was named to Holcomb’s 4-man Night Train team as of the 2010-2011 season & has helped push the team to 2 World Titles along with a string of World Cup medals, & also won the 2011 World Push Championship. With phenomenal results in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons Steve is healthy, strong & motivated.  His primary focus is preparing for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games where he will have a chance to win two Olympic medals, in the 4-man as part of the Night Train, and 2-man events.

Steve is from a very athletic family. His youngest brother, Chris, played lacrosse at Cornell & is now a member of the U.S. Bobsled Team as well. His father played football at Northeastern. He has a very strong interest in health & fitness, and has created several unique workout programs for athletes.

STEVE LANGTON CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

-  2012-2013 World Cup circuit:  4-Man (“Night Train” piloted by Holcomb): 2 Silver, 1 Bronze, 7 Top-10’s
-  2012-2013 World Cup circuit:  2-Man (with Steve Holcomb): 3 Gold, 1 Bronze, 7 Top-10 finishes
-  2013 World Championships:  4-Man: Bronze medal- set new track record / 2-Man: 4^th place
-  2012 World Championships:  4-Man: Gold medal
-  2012 World Championships:  2-Man: Gold medal- first ever 2-man World Champ title for the U.S.
-  4-Time U.S. National Push Champion (2012, 2011, 2010, 2008)
-  2011 World Push Champion
-  2011-2012 World Cup circuit:  4-Man: 1 Silver, 6 Top-10 / 2-Man: 1 Silver, 3 Top-10
-  2011-2012 Europa Cup:  4-Man: 1 Gold, 1 Silver / 2-Man: 2 Silver
-  2011 World Championships:  4-Man: Bronze medal / 2-Man: 6^th place
-  2010-2011 World Cup circuit:  4-Man: 2 Gold, 1 Bronze, 8 Top-10 / 2-Man: 5 Top-10
-  2009-2010 World Cup circuit: 4-Man (“USA 2” pilots Hays/Napier): 1 Silver, 1 Bronze, 5 Top-10
-  2009-2010 World Cup circuit:  2-Man (with Hays/Napier): 1 Silver, 2 Top-10
-  2010 Vancouver Olympic Games: 2-Man (w/ Napier): 10^th / 4-Man (USA2 DNF day 2 due to crash in day 1)
-  2009-2010 America’s Cup: 4-man (pilot Hays): 2 Gold; 2-Man: 2 Gold

Twitter: @StevenLangton

David Boudia decided he was going to be an Olympian at 7 years old while watching the opening ceremonies of the1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. With 16 National titles and two Olympic medals, David Boudia is the top 10-meter platform diver in the U.S. and one of the best in the world, in both the individual 10-meter and synchronized 10-meter events.

Boudia began his diving career at age 11 in 2000. Though a dive from the height of an Olympic 10-meter platform once petrified him, he forced himself to overcome this fear to pursue the sport he loved.  By 2005 he was a member of the U.S. National Diving Team and won the National Championships that year (synchro). He was homeschooled after 10^th grade in order to focus on diving, with an eye on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. From 2006-2008 David and his diving partner Thomas Finchum medaled in 14 major international competitions (10 consecutive). Boudia was named to the 2008 Olympic Team, finishing 10^th individual in the 10m platform, and 5^th with Finchum in the synchronized 10m.

David competed at Purdue University where he broke several records and won a host of major competitions, finishing his college career with six NCAA national titles.  While at Purdue he continued to thrive on the international stage as well- including five medals in the 2012 FINA Diving World Series, also becoming the first American male since 1986 to medal in the 10m platform at a World Championship with his Silver medal-winning performance in China.  David officially turned pro in April 2011, forgoing his final year of college eligibility to focus on the 2012 Olympics, but he continues to train with his college coach at Purdue.

Boudia won two medals at the 2012 Olympics in London, including a thrilling final-round performance in the individual 10m platform that won him the Gold medal.  He also won Bronze with current partner Nick McCrory in synchro 10m, becoming the first American duo to medal in the event, and the first Olympic medal in men’s diving for the U.S. since the 1996 Olympics.

David is a devout Christian and he openly references his religious beliefs; his faith plays a very big part in his life.  He is currently finishing his degree at Purdue, and will graduate in 2014.  He loves sports and will play just about anything competitive, loves college basketball & is an avid Colts fan.

Boudia will join Greg Louganis as a judge on ABC’s reality show Celebrity Splash, in March 2013.

DAVID BOUDIA CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
- 16-Time National Champion (combined individual 10-meter and synchronized 10-meter platform)
- 2012 London Olympic Games: Gold medal, 10-meter; Bronze medal, synchro 10m with Nick McCrory
- 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials: 10-meter Champion
- 2012, 2011, 2010: U.S. Diving National Championships: Gold, 10m; Gold synchro 10m with McCrory
- 2008 – 2012 FINA World Series: 2 Silver, 2 Bronze medals (10m); 2 Silver, 1 Bronze synchro 10m
- 2011 FINA World Championships: Silver, 10m (First U.S. male to medal on event at Worlds in 25 years)
- 2010, 2009 AT&T USA Diving Grand Prix: Gold medal, synchro 10m
- 2009 FINA World Championships: 6th 10m (best U.S. men’s 10m at Worlds since 1998); Silver, synch 10m
- 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: 10th, 10m (highest degree of difficulty in finals); 5th, synch 10m with Finchum
- 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials: 10-meter Champion
- 2006-2008: Medaled in 14 international meets (including 10 consecutive) synchro 10m with Finchum, including Gold at 2007 Pan American Games & 2007 USA Diving Grand Prix, & Bronze at 2007 Worlds

Twitter: @DavidBoudia