When I spoke to USA women’s luger Erin Hamlin last week for a previous story in the Observer-Dispatch, one of the things she talked about – not included in the story – was the luge team relay which has been added to the Olympics for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. The luge team relay is one male slider, one female and one doubles sled. The event has been part of the World Cup circuit since 2007.

“Yeah, it’s exciting,” Hamlin said. “We’re a sport, it’s nice to have another event out there for luge. It’s exciting and has been successful the last couple years. They’ve done a good job with it and a done a good job making it go smoothly. It’s a competition but it’s a friendly competition. I hope it stays this way. During the World Cup when we have this, it’s a really fun race. It’s good country pride and you’re joking around and having fun. It’s a unique thing to do.”

Earlier this month, Erin Hamlin played in a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Placid.

Hamlin, a longtime member of the U.S. Luge team, admits she’s not ready for a major tournament or tour, but she has some tricks in her golf bag.

“I don’t think I’m there yet,” Hamlin said. “I’m not the most avid golfer ever. I have a few good shots every once in a while.”

Improving her golf game is not the main reason Hamlin is spending the majority of another summer in Lake Placid.

Hamlin followed an admittedly “frustrating” 2010-11 luge season with her first significant break this spring from hard training in five years. Now, it’s time to get back to work — with workouts at least six days a week — in preparation for the upcoming season.

“One very good thing about Erin is Erin is the type of athlete that you really want to work with,” head coach Mark Grimmette,  said. “She has that ability to focus and clear her mind of all the peripheral stuff that doesn’t matter and that is an exceedingly good quality to have.”

Looking ahead

The U.S. Luge team gathers for preseason training in September and the World Cup season begins in November. One of the early-season stops will take the world’s sliders back to Whistler, British Columbia – the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The Dec. 9-10 racing in Whistler will be the first international competition at the track since the Olympics, when the death of a Georgian luger led sport officials to reconfigure the track in a decision widely criticized throughout the luge world.

American luge officials were among the critics of the changes that lowered starting points and consequently slowed the famously fast surface. Prior to the Games, American sliders including Hamlin praised the track for its speed.

Hamlin was among a group of athletes who slid on the track in March to help track officials establish new starting points.

USA Luge spokesman Gordy Sheer wrote in an email that new starting points have not yet been determined for doubles and men’s racing. The women’s start remains unchanged.

“It felt good to be at the ladies start,” Hamlin said. “They made some changes to some of the curves and that made a difference. It made a huge difference and the curves are much more forgiving and I think people agree with me. I’m excited to see what happens when we’re racing from the ladies start.”

Time to ‘regroup’

Hamlin spent the spring at home in Remsen, where she followed an easier offseason routine. Hamlin recently said she has trained hard nearly year-round, only easing up for a week or two. This year, Hamlin gave herself more downtime to recover from a roller-coaster season.

“I kept things easy for longer,” she said. “I hadn’t had that in a lot of years and it’s nice to step away a little and regroup.”

The 2009-10 luge season was Hamlin’s best on the World Cup circuit to date when she finished fourth in the overall standings. In late 2010, Hamlin appeared to pick up where she left off with bronze medals in two of the first three races: at Igls, Austria, and Calgary.

Then the runs got a little bumpy. Hamlin had unErin-like finishes, out of the top 10 in six of the next seven events. She finished eighth in the overall standings.

‘Solve the problem’

In hindsight, the errors could be attributed to Hamlin’s sled, sled maintenance and how the new USA Luge coaching staff worked with Hamlin to maximize her performance, according to first-year head coach Mark Grimmette.

For the first time in more than two decades, USA Luge introduced a new head coach in 2010. Grimmette, a five-time Olympian who was in the sport for 25 years and won two Olympic medals, replaced longtime program head coach Wolfgang Schadler last spring.  With the new coaching staff came change for the entire team.

“If she made a little movement here and there on her sled, then it seemed it’d get squirrely, that’s not far from the truth,” Grimmette said. “I think what the situation was, her sled needed more of an edge to it. We needed to communicate with one another and that allowed us to solve the problem.

“It’s not a fault,” he added. “It takes time for the coaches to learn from the athlete, and also that in combination with the weather and translate into a decision about what to do with a sled so the athlete has control on the track.”

Grimmette said Hamlin remained professional and focused during the season, despite the disappointing results.

“One very good thing about Erin is Erin is the type of athlete that you really want to work with,” Grimmette said. “She has that ability to focus and clear her mind of all the peripheral stuff that doesn’t matter and that is an exceedingly good quality to have.”

Always optimistic and even-keeled, Hamlin has moved on from the season. She won her fourth-straight national title in March and earlier this month was the USA Luge Female Athlete of the Year. Learning from her mistakes and understanding why they happened gives Hamlin reason to feel good about the future.

And the season wasn’t all bad.

“My starts were faster in almost every race and I have to focus on that because the results were not all that great,” she said. “I have to keep reminding myself that I won two medals. It wasn’t a total loss. It is frustrating when you want to do well and you don’t. I’m definitely over it and I’m excited to get everything organized and together and hopefully things will be better.”

USADA

Over 700 young people will be treated to a presentation by special guest Erin Hamlin, Olympian in the sport of Luge and Athlete Ambassador for the U.S. Anti‐Doping Agency (USADA), at the Chase Family Arena in West Hartford, Connecticut on Tuesday, June 28, 2011. Hamlin’s presentation is part of the World Scholar Athlete Games, which is an event based upon the best of the Olympic ideal; the belief that sport can be a force for understanding and friendship among athletes and among nations.

The World Scholar Athlete Games invites high achieving athletes and artists to come together over approximately one week to not only participate in their area of specialty but also to engage in conversation about subjects that are applicable to any country. It is during this series of workshops that participants develop initiatives for social entrepreneurship in their local communities.

Hamlin, who participates in the USADA Athlete Ambassador program, is an outspoken advocate for clean competition and combating the use of performance‐enhancing drugs in sport. Hamlin will speak to participants about fair play, good decision making, the effects of choices, being honorable, and acting with integrity and honesty.

About USADA

USADA is the non‐profit, independent and non‐governmental entity responsible for the testing and results management process in the U.S. for athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic Movement, upholding the Olympic ideal of fair play, and representing the interests of athletes. USADA is dedicated to preserving the integrity of sport through research initiatives and educational programs.

For further information contact USADA Media Relations Manager, Annie Skinner at (719)785‐2046 or askinner@usada.org

For more information about the World Scholar Athlete Games contact Paz Magat at (401)324‐9497 or pmagat@internationalsport.com

Two-time Olympian and 2009 World Luge Champion Erin Hamlin of Remsen will again head the US squad as a member of USA Luge’s 2011 fall national team.

Hamlin, a two-time bronze medalist during the 2010-11 season, will be joined on the women’s team by Ashley Walden and Julia Clukey. Hamlin is the defending U.S. National Champion (four consecutive wins) and she finished the World Cup season as the top American woman.

The sliding season is scheduled to begin in Lake Placid in mid-October and the World Cup races will begin about a month later.

Erin Hamlin is ready to trade in her racing boots for ski boots and a swimsuit, though not at the same time, of course.

Now that she has put the USA National Championships and the World Cup luge season behind her, the 24-year-old professional athlete from Remsen is officially off-season and dreaming of a little rest and recreation.  Nevertheless, she has a little more work to do before she hangs up her sled.

“Even though it is the ‘off-season,’ I am still training all the time, so it’s not like I all of a sudden have a lot of free time,” Hamlin said in an e-mail from USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid last week.

“Right now it’s not too busy, but it is nice to be able to breathe a little and not live off of a strict, tight schedule.”

Hamlin is joining a few of her teammates in Whistler, British Columbia, this week. She has been asked to revisit the course that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics and where she finished 16^th.

The International Luge Federation (FIL) made changes to the course layout in the aftermath of the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili of the Republic of Georgia who crashed during training on the high-speed run on Feb. 12, 2010.

“It is just a quick trip up to Whistler to slide for a couple days,” Hamlin explained. “I am actually very excited to get back up there and hope to ski a little.”

She is also anxious to get in some skiing. When she leaves Whistler, she will be heading to Hawaii for a short vacation. From there, she will report back to Lake Placid when the team reviews its season, and will then head home to Remsen.

“Right now I’m still sliding, so off-season plans haven’t been completely made yet,” Hamlin said. It will be nice to be home in the spring and we’ll see where it goes from there.”