Sweeney Wins 2nd Jr. National Championship

From USA Luge

Ty Andersen and Emily Sweeney won gold medals in their respective divisions Saturday at the Norton Junior National Luge Championships and Seeding Races in Park City, Utah.

While Sweeney distanced herself from the field over the four heats that were contested over two days, Andersen held on as Tucker West and Aidan Kelly made furious attempts to overthrow the overnight leader.

The weekend event offered three races in two days. Friday and Saturday were separate seeding competitions with accompanying points. The combination of the four runs over two days was used to determine the junior age class national champions (to age 20).

These two separate races will be among the determining factors when USA Luge coaches name the fall 2012 teams later in the spring.

Sweeney took a 0.75 of a second lead halfway through the race and stretched it to 1.1 seconds over Summer Britcher, of Glen Rock, PA on the 1,140 meter long women’s layout. In the process Sweeney reclaimed the junior national crown that Britcher grabbed in 2011.

“It feels good to get the title back. I’m not going to lie,” chuckled Sweeney after winning her second Norton junior title to accompany a Youth A National Championship she captured earlier in her career.

A winner of two Junior World Cups in Park City in December and three Challenge Cup gold medals during the winter, Sweeney took the second seeding event in 1:29.965. Britcher, a member of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) gold medal unit, was runner-up again in 1:30.318. Raychel Germaine, of Roswell, GA, who competed in the YOG women’s singles race, wound up third for the second straight day in 1:31.617.

The winner maxed out with 200 seeding points. Britcher had 170 and Germaine 140.

Sweeney’s four-heat Norton Junior National Championship time was 3:01.535. Britcher clocked 3:02.638, while Germaine accrued 3:04.683. The individual race results were identical each day.

“They were not perfect runs,” Sweeney said. “I tried to have clean runs and looked at it as training runs for junior world championships here next season.”

For the men, West captured the second seeding race and cut into Andersen’s 0.35 of a second midway advantage, but could not overcome the entire deficit.

Andersen totaled three minutes, 01.816 seconds over the four heats. “This is what I was going for,” said Andersen after the event’s conclusion.

One final major event – the Norton National Championships and Seeding Races – remains on the domestic schedule before the 2011-2012 race schedule officially ends. Those competitions will be held in a similar three-races-in-two-days format on March 12 and 13 at the Olympic Sports Complex outside Lake Placid, NY.