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)

Utica Observer Dispatch

Shannon Knapp and Katie Shelhamer want be Erin Hamlin.                    “I do,” said Knapp, a 15-year-old junior national luger from Marcy. “I want to go to the Olympics, and I want to go to college at the same time.”

Knapp & Shelhamer, members of a USA Luge Junior National team, spend up to 3-4 months a year in Lake Placid training on the Mt. Van Hoevenberg track at the Olympic Training Center where Hamlin got her start.

Hamlin, a two-time Olympic luger and 2009 World Champion, graduated from Remsen in 2004 while managing her education around training in Lake Placid. Eighteen months later, Hamlin raced her way on to her first Olympic team in December 2005. Hamlin competed in her second Olympics in 2010 and, in between, she won a World Championship.

“Obviously, that’d be great; that’d be amazing,” said Shelhamer, a 17-year-old Poland junior from Cold Brook.

Knapp and Shelhamer had the same introduction to luge as Hamlin – a slider search. The difference for Shelhamer and Knapp is that the searches they attended took place because of Hamlin. She had won her World Championship in Lake Placid months before the girls first sat down on wheeled sleds for a ride down Cornelia Street in Utica.

“I was cleaning and I had the TV on and it came on that there was going to be a slider search in Utica,” said Stacey Knapp, Shannon’s mother. “I thought it would be a fun thing to do, something different for a Saturday afternoon.”

Hamlin, who recently completed her eighth World Cup season, has turned into more than a fleeting memory for the Knapps. Hamlin convinced the family that Shannon could compete in luge and be a successful student at the same time.

“I have seen and known a lot of athletes without the support I had who gave up on school and dropped out only to be an athlete,” Hamlin stated in an email. “It’s tough, but if he or she does the work required, puts in the effort and earns good grades at the same time as having a successful career, there isn’t a whole lot more you can ask of a teenager.” “I’ve had an amazing opportunity to learn all over the world.”

The unconventional high school experience of area student-athletes Shannon Knapp, Tara Seigle and Katie Shelhamer can have a lifetime of benefits. The three girls have spent significant time away from home the last few years while participating in sports not affiliated with their schools. In the case of Knapp and Shelhamer, who live at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid while training, the experience also includes meeting people from different countries and cultures. “It is really a unique opportunity,” Pauline said.

Erin Hamlin, a two-time Olympic luger from Remsen, had the same experience as a high school student more than a decade ago while she worked her way up to the U.S. Luge Senior National Team. In an email, Hamlin stated that her travels have provided her with an education beyond what she could learn in a high school classroom.

Hamlin visited a train station in Dresden, Germany, that had been bombed during World War II. She has touched the Berlin Wall, visited a former KGB bunker and Buddhist temple and stood in Red Square.

“Learning about all of these places and their history is so important but getting to see them as a teenager and young adult makes you want to learn about them,” Hamlin said. “Having to spend time living in foreign countries and making very dear friends from all of them has made me more cultured, understanding and accepting than I could have ever dreamed of.”

Dr. Jeff Pauline, a sports psychology consultant at Syracuse University, said while there is a downside to spending time away from family and friends at home, the benefits – including challenging themselves – are important for future goals.

Erin Hamlin is well rested.  Hamlin, a member of the U.S. Luge team, needed a long sleep after the World Cup circuit stopped in her adopted home of Lake Placid earlier this month.

A throng of family and friends from Remsen made the trip to see Hamlin in an international race on Mt. Van Hoevenber for the first time in four years, when she won the 2009 world championship. The role of “hostess” left Hamlin weary after the whirlwind weekend that included her finishing a season-best fifth in the Feb. 8 women’s race.

“I did sleep for a solid 12 hours once everything was said and done though, which I really needed,” Hamlin wrote in an email from Lake Placid.

Now refreshed after time in the U.S., Hamlin and her teammates hit the road again over the weekend. The destination: Sochi, Russia for racing on the track that will host the Winter Olympics next year.

Sochi is on the Black Sea in western Russia. The luge competition will be one of several events in the mountains, about 30 minutes from Sochi and other events along the coast.

Hamlin’s race begins at 4:20 a.m. Eastern Saturday. In seventh place in the overall World Cup standings heading into the season’s final race, Hamlin will use her runs on the track to do some detective work. She’s looking for a rhythm and comfort level on the ice. A good result in Sochi will serve as a boost into the offseason and beyond – looking to 2013-14 that will be highlighted by the Olympics beginning Feb. 7.

Hamlin wrote she was a little bit “disappointed” in her performance in Lake Placid. Fifth is not satisfactory on a track where she has more runs than any other surface and where she expects to be “flawless.”

“I just know what I am capable of accomplishing here and want to race up to my ability,” she wrote. “I’m ready and excited.”

Hamlin and U.S. coach Miro Zayonc said she is capable of medaling regularly as they expressed optimism and satisfaction with Hamlin’s training and the progress she’s made since racing through a few frustrating finishes in the two years following the 2010 Olympics.

Hamlin ended the 2009-10 season with three bronze medals and a career-best fourth in the overall standings. She also landed on the podium with a bronze medal in Latvia towards the end of the 2011-2012 season.

Zayonc remains pleased with her progress. Hamlin termed her season “consistent.” After finishing 11th in the first two races, Hamlin earned four-straight top 10s. The week before Lake Placid, she tied a previous season best with sixth place at the world championships on the 2010 Olympic track outside of Vancouver.

“Despite missing podium finishes, I feel this has been a good season for Erin,” Zayonc wrote in an email last week before leaving for Russia. “She is more comfortable sliding, and placing in top six is possible in every race.”

They are working on her sled to optimize speed, and Hamlin continues to try to shave time anywhere she can. She’s maintained her confidence, and improvements are obvious to Zayonc.

“There is room to improve her position when she is off line a little bit, but she is gaining her form back and sliding better and better as the season progresses. Definitely we made steps forward this season, and as we are focusing on our last race in Sochi, we already thinking of ways to gain more speed for next season.”

Hamlin and her teammates have experience on the Sochi track. An international training week was held there in the fall. U.S. doubles slider Preston Griffall said the track has the feel of a roller coaster with curves that start going uphill and come out headed downhill.

It’s a track Hamlin wrote she likes and one that is not particularly difficult.

“It’s relatively easy to get down but will be all about finding the little things and tweaking minute details to get down fast,” she wrote. “Racing will be extremely close and exciting I think. We will see!”

Remsen-native Erin Hamlin had her season’s best finish Friday as the World Cup cicuit made a visit to her home track of Lake Placid.

Hamlin did not medal this time, but took fifth place, in addition to a bronze medal in the American Pacific Championship.  Hamlin holds the track record on the Mt. Van Hoevenberg track. She set that back in 2009, when she won the World Championship.

NEWSChannel 2 spoke with Hamlin follower her competition. Click the video for her entire interview.