U.S. luger Chris Mazdzer slides into medal contention with two runs to go

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption What it's like to go fast according to Olympians Members of Team USA describe what it's like to hit top speeds in their events.

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The U.S. men’s luge team has been a forever underdog at the Olympics, chasing the naturally advantaged Germans, Austrians and occasionally Italians.

These Olympics, however, have long shaped up as the moment for the USA to finally make an impact in men’s singles and perhaps even land a medal for the first time. If that streak is broken on Sunday, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. But it’s not the American everyone expected who will carry those hopes into the final two runs.

While two-time World Cup singles event winner Tucker West got tripped up by slick conditions and a tricky curve in the middle of his first run that put him in a big hole, 29-year old Chris Mazdzer of Saranac Lake, N.Y., found the right lines in both trips down the 2,018-meter track and heads into Sunday in fourth place, just one thousandth of a second out of third.

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Though Mazdzer has struggled on the World Cup circuit since breaking through with a career-best No. 3 ranking in the 2015-16 season, the three-time Olympian said temperatures in low teens Saturday night that hardened the ice at Alplensia Sliding Center made the conditions perfect for him, posting times of 47.800 and 47.717 seconds.

“When the ice gets hard, it really does come down to experience,” Mazdzer said. “It’s really playing into our hands.”

It might be difficult for Mazdzer to catch two-time gold medalist Felix Loch of Germany, who leads and is in prime position to claim this event for a third consecutive Olympics. He leads Austrian David Gleirscher by .188 seconds going into the final two runs and will be a strong favorite to claim his spot alongside countryman Georg Hackl, who won this event in 1992, 1994 and 1998.

The results are in! After the first 2️⃣ heats of 4️⃣, @usa_luge lands in the top 25! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/VtrjTE3OkI — U.S. Olympic Team (@TeamUSA) February 10, 2018

But any medal finish would be a massive breakthrough not just for the USA but also for Mazdzer, who was ranked No. 3 in the world for the 2015-16 season but hasn’t made a podium since. His best finish in the most recent World Cup season was sixth place, offering no indication he would be in medal contention here.

“It wasn’t my year, but that’s the best thing about the Olympics,” Mazdzer said. “You really put all your focus and everything into right now, and I still don’t feel any pressure on me. I’m an outsider. I like being the underdog.”

Still, there’s a long way to go, and any little mistake can derail a luger. In this sport, the combined time of four runs over two days determines the outcome with no ability to get a do-over or have the worst score thrown out. Fractions of a second matter, and even one loose entry into a curve can end medal hopes.

West found that out the hard way, going too early into curve No. 6, causing him to skid into No. 7 enough to cost him some speed. It was a domino effect from there. Despite the fastest start time in his first run, West finished in 48.484 seconds, leaving him in 26th place. He recovered a bit in the second run to move up to 18th, but West, who had targeted these Games to contend for a medal, is now almost certainly too far back.

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The third American entrant, Taylor Morris, also isout of contention in 23rd place, 1.566 seconds behind Loch.

“I’m certainly disappointed, for sure,” West said. “There’s a lot of work that went into this. It’s a very disappointing result for the first run. But you’ve got to keep your head up. It’s a four-run race and there’s definitely ground to be made up.”

The place to make up ground — or, for many lugers, to lose it — has been the ninth curve. Mazdzer made it through cleanly both times, allowing him to “let the sled be free” the rest of the way, particularly the second time down when he got through it without as much as a wiggle.

“It was the craziest moment of relief,” Mazdzer said. “I made mistakes in other places, little mistakes, but the problem with Curve 9 is if you mess up there, it’s a lot of time. (A mistake) down in first run in Curve 13 cost me probably a tenth of a second. But if you mess up out of 9, you’re losing three-tenths to a second. I’m out of third place by 1,000th of a second so if you’re losing three-tenths, the race is over. That’s why 9 is so important. If you nail that, you carry your speed to the bottom and you can let it fly.”

And that’s exactly what Mazdzer plans to do Sunday as he tries to secure a historic medal for the U.S team.

“Nothing changes,” he said. “(Sunday) is a brand new day and I’m excited for it.”