American Teams Slide Into History Doubly Delighted

Now that they have a silver and bronze, the first U.S. luge medals, what’s next? Platinum?

Will Mojo Nixon’s “Luge Team U.S.A.,” with Gordy Sheer of the silver-medal-winning doubles team on drums and the rest of his doubles teammates, the Arctic Evel Knievels, singing chorus, take over the charts?

Mojo believed when maybe nobody else but the sledders did.

The zany rocker, selected honorary captain by the doubles duo, wrote in his luge anthem, as he calls it, “the U.S. medal drought will now be over since Capt. Mojo has taken over.”

In addition: “Tonight,” composed Mojo, “plunder and pillage down in the village.”

Those latter lyrics, said bronze winning Brian Martin, probably would be the theme of the U.S. victory party Friday night.

Who could blame them?

Ending that 34-year drought in which all 87 Olympic luge medals had gone to Germany, Italy, Austria and the former Soviet Union, Sheer and Chris Thorpe finished second in Friday’s doubles and Martin and Mark Grimmette finished third.

“Incredible,” Grimmette said. “I can’t describe my feelings.

“My Olympic dream was for [the two teams] to tie for gold. That was the only thing that would have made this sweeter.”

The gold went to Stefan Krausse and Jan Behrendt, completing a German sweep of the luge gold and wrapping up a 16-year career in which Krausse-Behrendt, the former a mechanic and the latter a banker, won gold twice, silver once and bronze once.

Said Behrendt: “As athletes, we’ve achieved all of our goals and now we will concentrate on our professional life.”

On a postcard afternoon in the Japan Alps, Krausse-Behrendt had a cumulative time of 1:41.105 for the two heats, edging Thorpe and Sheer by .022 of a second and Grimmette and Martin by .112 in the closest doubles finish since 1976, when timing was extended to thousandths.

After Grimmette-Martin, and then Thorpe-Sheer, set track records consecutively in the second heat to ensure their medal positions, Krausse-Behrendt maintained their first-heat lead with a time of 50.513 seconds.

“We realized the Americans had top times, but we’ve been in the business a long time and are able to handle the pressure,” Krausse said.

The U.S. sledders, carrying hopes of an Olympic breakthrough after successful World Cup campaigns over the last two seasons, insisted there was no pressure, but U.S. luge Coach Wolfgang Schadler said, “I feel like the weight of the Rocky Mountains is off my shoulders and I will sleep really well tonight--or not at all.”

The breakthrough comes at a time when two leading U.S. lugers, Duncan Kennedy and Wendel Suckow, are retiring, and a third, Cammy Myler, might, and figures to provide a major lift to a program that has made significant strides over the last 10 years but needed the credibility of an Olympic medal, said Ron Rossi, executive director of the U.S. Luge Assn.

Had they missed in Nagano, it would have been another four years.

“Everybody feels that when we get to Salt Lake City [in 2002] we’ll have a home-field advantage of sorts,” Rossi said. “To get a measure of respect for the program, I felt we had to first do well on foreign soil. Two is double the fun.”

Will the four U.S. medalists still be active in four years? None would say. Do they believe their success can help lift luge from the shadows in the U.S.?

Said Martin, the 24-year-old from Palo Alto who was attracted to luge by a newspaper ad regarding a sled-on-wheels recruiting clinic in his hometown:

“It’s all about doing our best. If people don’t watch, it doesn’t take away from our enjoyment and participation. A lot of people were rooting for us out there today, and that was great. Our success can only improve the image of the sport. Everybody likes to pull for a winner.”

Said Sheer, the 27-year-old from Croton, N.Y., who was on a ski trip in Lake Placid when he saw a U.S. Luge Assn., phone number on the side of a van and promptly dialed:

“We broke the barrier, I guess. Now it’s up to everybody else who comes after us to live up to our performance. It’ll be someone else’s job to win the gold medal.”

That sounded as if Sheer, a part-time student at Ohio State and part-time drummer with the alternative rock group Jim, is bowing out. His mother bet him $100 that he would if he won a medal. Sheer wouldn’t say whether he plans to collect, but his and Thorpe’s silver was the more surprising of the two U.S. medals since they had struggled during the 1997-98 World Cup series--won by Grimmette and Martin--after Sheer and Thorpe had won it the previous season.

All four--good friends who embraced enthusiastically after they finished their medal runs--believe they had won the respect of the Europeans with their World Cup success after being laughingstocks, in Sheer’s words, and enduring snide comments for many years.

“I think we had established ourselves as a power, and this only confirms it,” said Thorpe, the top man in the Thorpe-Sheer team who competed Friday with a soft cast on his broken right wrist.

Taping from Nagano on Friday, the sledders made a sweep of the Friday morning network shows in the U.S., but they had been unable to reach their man, Mojo Nixon, although his answering machine proclaimed “the drought’s over.”

And Nancy Martin, Brian’s mother, was so excited about his medal that she told her son, “OK, I’ll start listening to Mojo too.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEDALISTS

Luge

MEN’S DOUBLES

Gold: Krausse-Behrendt, Germany

Silver: Thorpe-Sheer, U.S.

Bronze: Grimmette-Martin, U.S.