On the Luge, Two Heads, One Mind-Set

"When you're sliding at 70 to 80 miles an hour down the track, you definitely want to be able to be honest with one another and admit mistakes," said Brian Martin, who is behind Mark Grimmette. (By Jeff Mcintosh -- Associated Press)

In a sport that rewards raw speed and measures success to the thousandth of a second, it's reasonable to assume that the advance of age would be a detriment. But that's hardly the case with luge, in which experience is far more valuable than youth as the athletes, known as "sliders," hurtle feet-first and virtually flat on their backs down icy chutes at speeds that would get you arrested on the Beltway.

Being unabashedly brave, after all, is overrated when one's ability to steer at nearly 90 mph rests entirely in subtle shifts of pressure from a calf muscle or shoulder. In a challenge of that order, it's far more critical to understand the mechanics of a 60-pound fiberglass sled, the geometry of hairpin turns and the capricious effects of gusting winds and swirling snow. And when there are four calves, four shoulders and two bodies at work, as there are in doubles luge, it's even more critical that the sliding partners understand the nuances of each other's mind.

With the 2006 Winter Olympics less than two months away, it's precisely that sort of experience and familiarity that makes medal favorites of the United States' most decorated luge tandem, Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin, who have been sliding partners longer than many married couples stay together. And like most couples that endure, Grimmette and Martin credit their success to frank communication and the ability to criticize, if need be, without undermining trust.

"When you're sliding at 70 to 80 miles an hour down the track, you definitely want to be able to be honest with one another and admit mistakes," said Martin, 31, of Palo Alto, Calif. "There are some times you have to swallow your pride. But it's really that communication that has kept us together and helps us go fast."

First paired in December 1996, Grimmette and Martin won the United States' first Olympic medal in luge at the 1998 Nagano Games, where they took bronze. At Salt Lake City in 2002, they claimed silver. So with four more years' experience, it's understandable that they've got their sights on gold at the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy.

Until last week, Grimmette and Martin's place on the 2006 Olympic team was in limbo. Having won bronze at the 2004 world championships, they needed only to finish among the top five in one of this season's World Cup races to secure an Olympic berth. But they got off to a rocky start, hampered in part by poor weather at their training base, Lake Placid, N.Y., which limited their ability to prepare. The rustiness showed on track, where they finished 13th, ninth and 10th in the season's first three events.

Then came last week's victory at Calgary, which clinched their Olympic berth and sent them into the season's final race -- the Viessmann Luge World Cup event in Lake Placid, which gets under way today -- with no pressure.

"The stress is off us, and now all we need to do is think about sliding fast," Grimmette, 34, said during a conference call this week.

Though wildly popular in Scandinavia, luge is often confused with the other two sliding sports -- bobsled and skeleton -- in the United States. All three sports compete on the same course, which typically includes as many as two dozen turns as it plunges to the finish. Of the bunch, luge is the fastest and demands the most precise movements by the slider.

The start is critical. In singles, the slider starts from a seat position, rocking back and forth as he pulls on a set of handles that overhangs the ice. Once the sled is launched, he frantically accelerates by paddling the ice with gloves that have spiked fingertips, then lies back to be as aerodynamically sleek as possible.

The principle is the same in doubles, contested only by men in the Olympics. The bigger man sits in front to reduce wind resistance; the smaller partner tucks in behind. When viewed from the front, a doubles team looks like one body with four legs and four arms. The back driver can't see anything but the front driver's helmet. Still, both sliders influence the line -- or path -- that the sled takes down the course.

The front driver steers with his calves, pressing on the left runner to turn right, while the back driver steers by digging his shoulder into the base of the sled, pressing in the opposite direction from the front driver's calf. The goal is to leverage the strength and explosiveness of two bodies to do the work of one slider. But to work optimally, the two bodies must act and react with one mind.

There's no way for sliders to shout strategy as they zoom down the course. The noise is deafening, with the sled's runners chattering over the ice and screaming fans lining the course. But amid the cacophony experienced sliders can pick up subtle bits of information that help them negotiate the track; the runners make a different sound on a cold, dry track than they do over a soft, moist one. And track conditions affect which line will be fastest.

"It takes a number of years to see a number of different situations on the track where you're both learning how each other reacts to that situation," Grimmette said. "The longer and the more time you have that experience, the better off you're going to be, and the more situations you're going to be comfortable in."