WEBVTT
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Well, a lot has happened since
the last time we recorded, just a
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week ago. Today we have the
doubles team of de Gregoryo Hollander on.
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Welcome, Zach and Sean. Thank
you, thank you, thanks for having
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US so first I want to give
you a huge congratulations for making the two
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thousand and twenty two Olympic team over
the weekend. Awesome job. You must
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be so excited. Yeah, it's
definitely been a shurial weekend there for us.
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So it was. It was craziness
but ended up being great for us.
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Yeah, it's definitely a crazy weekend. I really came down to the
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last run. I must admit that
I had to go through my old blink
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podcast archives to see if I've interviewed
the two of you, and it turns
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out like the embarrassing truth is no, I haven't interviewed you both. I
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know I interviewed Shawn Back in August
of two thousand and twenty. So,
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Zach, sorry about you slipping through
the cracks. I apologize about that.
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Not a problem. Z can you
tell me where you're from and how you
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got started in Luche? Yeah,
so I'm from Medway, Massachusetts and in
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two thousand and ten. In September
I went to a slider search and Carlisle,
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Massachusetts, and yeah, from there
made it through the little selection process
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you have and move my way up
the teams and then last year starry training
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with the national team and this year
is my first year on the national team.
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Sean, on episode ten, when
I interviewed you, I specifically asked
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if you were going to do singles
or double doubles moving forward, and at
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the time it sounded like you had
kind of thrown in the towel on doubles.
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Yet here you are racing in the
Olympics and doubles. What happened between
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August of two thousand and twenty,
when you told me you were concentrating on
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singles, and now when you're the
soul doubles team for the US? Yeah,
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a lots happened in the past two
seasons. We were always told when
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we were juniors that we couldn't do
doubles, no matter how many times we
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asked. And then, yeah,
it's just the opportunity came last season when
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they were only going to take four
men on the World Cup circuit and me
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and Zach were battling for that fourth
spot and we kind of both came to
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the realization that if we wanted to
make a push for the next games,
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we have the best opportunity doing it
as doubles team, and our coaches agreed
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and the rest is history. Zak, a year ago, a year and
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a half ago, when you started
doing doubles together, did you imagine you'd
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be on the Olympic team? No, not, not at all, honestly.
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I mean, obviously it was one
of those dreams and it would have
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been super cool if it ended up
happening, but I think we both knew
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all the stars needed to really aligned
for it and it definitely was a very
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rough road when we first started doing
doubles and between injuries and sled problems and
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every single thing you can imagine going
wrong went wrong. So that first year
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we had like, I think it
ended up being only fifty runs for our
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whole first season on a double sled. So that's that's a lot lower than
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normal and not what we wanted.
But ended up kind of pushing through all
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that. Did A lot of summer
training together, a lot of start practice
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and stuff like that, and then
once you got on the sled this year
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it started to really move forward fast
and now now we're here. So even
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a week ago, Sean, did
you imagine you'd be in this the spot?
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The truth is now it was a
very it was a very challenging season.
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It was kind of a fight the
entire time. We were just trying
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to figure out our sled the entire
time and it really took till the last
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race where it felt like we got
everything set up right how we wanted it,
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and it all kind of came together
pretty much at the last minute.
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I believe Tuesday night of last week
you found out there was going to be
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a race off. It was a
Onerun race at the Friday's Nation Cup.
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Can you talk about how there were
three you lest teams buying for that one
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Olympic spot and how you became like
how did it play out? Yeah,
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so we found out Tuesday night,
we trained that Tuesday morning and stuff like
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that, and then, yeah,
we knew we had two days left to
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training before probably the biggest race of
me and Sean's career so far. So
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ended up getting there on Friday morning
and we're feeling good. We made a
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pretty drastic sled change the night before, which we didn't know how it was
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going to go. We are on
a new pair of steals that we haven't
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read the entire season so or our
entire career really as a double sled,
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so we were hoping that was going
to work out. Our big problem during
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the week was the star curve.
We just couldn't get this led to turn
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out all. So from the beginning
of the week we were just saying to
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each other that we don't care how
this race ends up coming out, as
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long as you can make it through
that star curve right. So then we're
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sitting in the start house and we
hear the unfortunate news that Chris and Jason
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ended up crashing and there in their
race run, and all sudden your stomach
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kind of drops because you know now
it's it's you and Dungan Dana that and
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you're sitting, you know, five
feet apart and you just know one of
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the two of you guys are going
to be going into the Games. So
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it was it was definitely one of
those stomach dropping moments. And ended out
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putting down a really nice run for
our nation's cut run and then we celebrated
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right away just because you're happy with
the run. And then after we had
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to wait two sleds and watched them
in and Dana splits all the way down,
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and I mean my I was I
was going crazy because my heart's beating
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out of my chest as you see
them come down seven hundredth of a second
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behind us. So we are just
screaming at the finish as soon as that
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happened, super excited and couldn't have
couldn't have planned it any better. I
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mean needed all the starts to aligned
and they did, so it was it's
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great that way. You know,
obviously there was a lot of heartbreak last
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week. You know, a handful
of your teammates had the the same goal
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you did, was to make the
two thousand and twenty two Olympic team,
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and a lot of them did not. Being surrounded by people who were going
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through heartbreak, were you able to
celebrate your accomplishment? Yeah, I think
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that need to give a big shout
out to the teammates for being the way
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they are. I mean Jason's tournament
especially. He's been the best role model
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that way, where his sportsmanship after
this weekend has been next to none.
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And Yeah, from the start he
was he was hugging us and telling us
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how proud he was and stuff like
that. So they definitely made it as
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much as they were. We're sad
something like that. They made it very,
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very nice for us and made us
have the experience that they'd want them
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to have. I was texting with
a friend and I was talking to them
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about how intense the doubles race off
was last week and about how the most
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season team of mazard tournament crashed and
wouldn't make the team, and I was
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texting to this friend saying I'm so
impressed with Jason Tournament and his the sportsmanship
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that he displayed is really kind of
unheard of. Sean, can you tell
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me and the rest of the listeners
exactly what Jason has offered you and how
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he's helping you out at this point? Yeah, I mean Jason, he
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really is just a began of sportsmanship. Like every single race we went to
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he'd give me a one on one
track walk on what he does, the
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mistakes he made and what he's learned
from them. Even Chris as well.
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They were both there giving us lines
every every week when they didn't have to,
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and it was really was really cool
experience that he did that. And
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then after the raceoff he offered us
to use him and Chris has double sled
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for the Games because it's a it's
a known quantity. We know that sled
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runs fast and there were still a
lot of uncertainties with our double slid.
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So that's what we're doing here in
Park City is getting that sled fitted for
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us and hopefully it works out great. You Win the race off on Friday.
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There was still question about what would
happen on Saturday, but long story
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short, you pulled it out your
rate. You're on the Olympic team.
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At what point did you guys decide, hey, instead of going to Oberhoff
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and St Maritz for the final two
World Cups before the Games, we're going
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to head to park city and get
on the sled, get it fitted and
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do as much training as we can. Yeah, that happened kind of behind
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the scenes. For us, it
was Jason again pulling this amazing, amazing
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thing off. He came to rob
and he told them, yeah, we
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did, we're going to put a
team first here and he offered up his
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sled and now he's offering up himself
and he's out here in Park City with
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us and as we're doing this interview
he's helping Rob Right now dial and that
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sled to get it ready for us
as soon as possible and then, hopefully
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even this as soon as this afternoon, we can hop on that sled and
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really start figuring it out in these
next twelve days of sliding here and then
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be well prepared for once we get
back to China. Help me understand what
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exactly like you know you you talked
about being in the shop with the sled
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and having to get it ready for
your bodies. What do you think has
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to be changed on the sled to
make it ready for the two of you?
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Yeah, the major difference between the
two doubles teams is I'm a few
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inches taller than Jason. So to
make the sled fit we had to extend
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the cuffin's by about three inches and
that's the most major adjustment that we're doing.
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There's a bunch of small things like
handle position, but we've already adjusted
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the KUPINS and that seemed to go
pretty well. So the next step is
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just hit the ice and see out
slides. Rob Is literally in the in
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the shop working with the fiberglass to
extend the length of those Kupins was so
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it's going to look as we speak
as we speak. So a lot of
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people don't understand or are they're not
familiar with in Luge in general, especially
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the US team, the sleds are
owned by us a luge and they are
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kind of made for your body and
your the coaches make them over the summer
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and and it's you know, that's
generally how it works. However, Jason
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took his own money and purchased the
sled. Is that? Is that the
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sled we're talking about? That that
he's letting you borrow is his personal sled.
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Yeah, it's a mix between,
yeah, the sled he was riding
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back with Matt Mortinson back when their
science gather and parts of the new sled
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that he purchased this season to try, but they never ended up racing on
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it, but they're they're trying to
figure it out. So then we took
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a few parts of that and most
of the old sled and now we're we're
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using that. Gotcha. Wow,
all out of Jason's pocket, which has
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been incredible for him to offer and
all this. Yeah, that's pretty amazing,
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pretty amazing. Can you talk a
little bit about the dynamics on the
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U US loge team? It's an
individual sport, but as a newer doubles
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team, like you talked about the
one on, you know, the one
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on one track walks with the team
with Chris and Jason. But what about
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specifically just this like the family side
of things that you know, us a
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loge team, is your family.
Can you talk about that and how it's
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affected you? Yeah, it's been
really great being the first year traveling with
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the seniors for both me and Sean. They've wocome up us on so well
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and we celebrate, you know,
Thanksgiving together and all these holidays together when
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you're with each other for nine percent
of the year. So they've been really
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great with making it feel like a
home and keeping us positive when things go
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negative and helping us celebrate when things
are going positive. So it's been really
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amazing how they treated us as our
first year and even during these super stressful
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times, have stayed very positive with
us the whole time. Sean, can
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you talk about how covid has a
affected the team culture? Like if you
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the team is very different. The
Dynamics and the way you interact are very
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different than even two years ago,
two seasons ago. How is it different
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now? Yeah, we're a lot
more limited on, obviously where we can
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go. Sometimes even our sliding groups
are affected by it. And Yeah,
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it's it's very challenging traveling. There's
just ayone's always nervous she gonna get covid
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and put the whole team in lockdown. So there's always that stress. But
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at the end of the day the
core is still the same. We're still
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team. You still hang out all
the time in loge. The newest event,
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I think it came about in two
thousand and fourteen at the Games,
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is the team relay. As the
only doubles team you're guaranteed to be racing
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in the event, can you describe
what's the team relay for someone who's never
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watched a lose race before? Yeah, so the team relay is an event
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where first starts with a women's single
slider and then a men's single slider and
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then we anchor the race with being
a double sled. And so first the
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women starts and she has a normal, traditional start and then at the end
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of the run, about twenty meters
past the normal finish line, there's a
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pad that you have to sit up
and hit and as soon as she hits
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that pad it opens up the gates
at the start for our men's led and
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he'll pull off from there, go
down and hit the pad at the bottom
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and then opens up for us.
So it's all from the lowest start of
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whatever the race is. So for
China be the women's and double start.
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Other tracks have different doubles in women's
start. So it's it's whatever the lowest
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start is. So it's definitely a
big change for men's sliders and stuff like
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that, where they have to change
start heights completely and then they also have
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to put in a reaction start and
worry about the pad as well. So
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it's definitely a very exciting race where
you have to have three good runs all
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in a row from three rble from
four different sliders and everyone has to hit
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that pad at the finish and as
soon as the double slid hits that pad,
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your time's over. I know you
said you worked a lot in the
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summer together as on starts. Did
you have much time to work on your
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reaction starts? Yeah, that that
was the one benefit of our new starhouse
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is we did get to do a
lot of relay training. It's going to
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be interesting because we've never actually raced
relay as a doubles team, only as
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singles athletes. So it's going to
be it's going to be a new experience,
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but I think work for it.
Maybe Robert or Jason could drape up
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something over the finish this week and
you can practice sitting up and flapping it.
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Yeah, that's a that's a plan. We're supposed to get some reactions,
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start practice here and hopefully they can
put up a pad for us.
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That's the nice part about being back
on home soil is they do do everything
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we ask for out here in Park
City and we're very thankful for that.
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So hopefully we can get something going. So it feels feels pretty real.
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On the PODCAST we've talked a lot
about the new track and Beijing Sewan.
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Can you describe it to us?
What's the most challenging part for you as
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a doubles team? Beijing is interesting
because there's just so many different aspects of
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other tracks like combined into one.
It's it's a very flowy track, it's
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a very long track and it does
get very fast at the bottom. For
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Doubles, probably the most challenging part
is out of curve five and towards the
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bottom out of curve thirteen and especially
for a bottom man, it's very challenging
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because the curves are very open and
there's not a lot of pressure points,
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so it's almost hard to tell where
you are in the curve and, like,
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without looking visually, like how close
you are to the exit. So
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but the good news is, and
I think this will help level of the
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playing field, is that most athletes
have an equally limited number of runs on
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the track, since covid really limited
who got on the track and when.
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Do you see that as an advantage
for you? Yeah, I definitely do.
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Even in the World Cup there was
everyone was almost all over the place.
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A lot of a couple people doubt
the track in pretty well, but
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you also saw a lot of inconsistent
sliding, which can really play to our
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advantage, especially in the team relay
where you have to put three runs together.
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I think everyone on the US team
is very consistent sliders. So I
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think I'll plan in to our benefit. ZAC. What if the veteran athletes
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told you about the Olympic Games,
you know, like team processing, opening
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ceremony, what like, what to
expect? What if have you heard from
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them? Yeah, right now I'd
say the biggest thing everyone's been preaching is
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enjoy every second of it. They're
all telling me how amazing their first Games
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where and how that's one moment you'll
never have twice. You know it's yes,
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you can go to a second Olympics, but you can never have your
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first Olympics. Sean, what is
the one thing you look forward to the
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most as an Olympian? Probably opening
ceremonies. That seems like the most exciting
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part, and then obviously racing.
What about you, Zach? Yeah,
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I'm really looking forward to the team
relay event. I think will be a
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really cool one and our team is
amazing and they've kept it very, very
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positive. Where it's they're not trying
to make it stressful at all, where
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it's like, Oh, you have
to have that perfect drone, they all
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they all know we've only been doing
doubles for a little over a year and
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they're all just very, very positive
about it. So it's been great that
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way and really looking forward to it. So, like I mentioned, your
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teammates are an OBERHAAP preparing for World
Cup number eight. Before you left,
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did any of them talk about what
they would be working on over the next
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couple world cups leading into the Games. Yeah, mostly people are trying to
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dial in exactly what they want to
kind of use at the Games and really
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get some good momentum into the Games. School. That didn't work out as
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much in our favor as we were
hoping and but we did show really good
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speed there across the board. Unfortunately. Yeah, we did have three crashes,
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but I think, with that being
sad, these next few races are
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really going to be just about confidence
boosting for the whole USA team Sean.
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When do you guys head over to
Beijing? We head to we're going to
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meet up with our team January twenty
two, and then I think from there
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we're gonna head over to team processing. Where are you meeting the team and
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where is team processing? We're meeting
up with the team in Zurich and I'm
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not even sure where team processing is
quite yet. We're kind of still playing
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it by here. We haven't by
that. Yeah, we're just listening to
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whatever to people tell us to do. So it's been like fill this form
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in that form. So it's it's
all that fun stuff. Right now.
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What are you guys doing to stay
healthy and covid free? Because we're clocks
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ticking. I mean if, God
forbid, you got Covid, it would
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be bad news. Yeah, right
now we're out in park city and we
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have our own little apartment here that
is just the four of us, just
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us, Robin Jason, and we're
doing stuff like Insta car for all our
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groceries and really just only staying at
the apartment and at the track. The
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weight room we're using is up at
the top of the track and there's no
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one else using it for I think
this whole months. So really just staying
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away from people as much as possible. Sean, normally families are really big
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part of the Olympic Games. They
get to go and experience it and have
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a really good time with you guys
and cheer you on, and obviously that's
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not happening this year because of covid. Have they talked to you about how
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bummed out they are and let you
know what they're going to be doing instead
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of heading over? Yeah, I'm
really sad that they aren't going to be
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able to be there and watch the
slide, but USU loses hosting a watch
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party and like placid, and I
think they're all going to be there.
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ZAC. What about your family?
Yeah, they're planning on doing the same
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thing. I think there is also
now a watch party out here in Park
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City as well that Tmosa is hosting. So I think my parents and family
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around like placed are going to be
up in La placed and then anyone from
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the West Coast, for my family, I think, is going to come
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out here and join the TM USA
one in Park City. Oh, that's
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awesome. That'll be fun. Well, I don't want to teach keep you
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any longer. I know you've got
a lot of work to do and some
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training, hopefully to do today,
and I don't want to keep you from
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that. So just thanks so much
for chatting and I know I speak for
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everyone when we say good luck and
slide fast. Thank you very much and
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thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. What a fascinating story.
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I would say it's almost unheard of
that a team who got together just
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a year before makes the Olympic team. This is a team that will not
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only be fun to watch this February
in Beijing, but also heading into the
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two thousand and twenty six games as
well. Are you following our Olympians on
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social media? The next few weeks
will offer a really cool insight into what
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it's like to be an Olympian,
and social media is by far the best
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00:21:36.769 --> 00:21:41.569
place to see their perspectives. Make
sure you follow us a log as well
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00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:45.690
on facebook, twitter and Instagram,
and go to us a loge dot org
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00:21:45.009 --> 00:21:49.240
for more in depth information on the
sport and the team. Be Sure you're
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00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:52.720
sharing this podcast with all of your
friends and family. We'd love to spread
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00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:56.039
the world of Louge as far and
wide as possible, and this will help
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00:21:56.079 --> 00:22:00.359
our athletes get as many fans as
possible. Thank you for listening to blink,
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a podcast about what it takes to
win a lose race in the blink
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of an eye.
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Well, a lot has happened since
the last time we recorded, just a
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00:00:11.390 --> 00:00:15.789
week ago. Today we have the
doubles team of de Gregoryo Hollander on.
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00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:19.870
Welcome, Zach and Sean. Thank
you, thank you, thanks for having
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00:00:19.870 --> 00:00:23.899
US so first I want to give
you a huge congratulations for making the two
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00:00:23.899 --> 00:00:27.579
thousand and twenty two Olympic team over
the weekend. Awesome job. You must
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be so excited. Yeah, it's
definitely been a shurial weekend there for us.
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So it was. It was craziness
but ended up being great for us.
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Yeah, it's definitely a crazy weekend. I really came down to the
9
00:00:38.689 --> 00:00:43.009
last run. I must admit that
I had to go through my old blink
10
00:00:43.090 --> 00:00:47.689
podcast archives to see if I've interviewed
the two of you, and it turns
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out like the embarrassing truth is no, I haven't interviewed you both. I
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know I interviewed Shawn Back in August
of two thousand and twenty. So,
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Zach, sorry about you slipping through
the cracks. I apologize about that.
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Not a problem. Z can you
tell me where you're from and how you
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00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:08.549
got started in Luche? Yeah,
so I'm from Medway, Massachusetts and in
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two thousand and ten. In September
I went to a slider search and Carlisle,
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Massachusetts, and yeah, from there
made it through the little selection process
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you have and move my way up
the teams and then last year starry training
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with the national team and this year
is my first year on the national team.
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Sean, on episode ten, when
I interviewed you, I specifically asked
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if you were going to do singles
or double doubles moving forward, and at
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the time it sounded like you had
kind of thrown in the towel on doubles.
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Yet here you are racing in the
Olympics and doubles. What happened between
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August of two thousand and twenty,
when you told me you were concentrating on
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singles, and now when you're the
soul doubles team for the US? Yeah,
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a lots happened in the past two
seasons. We were always told when
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we were juniors that we couldn't do
doubles, no matter how many times we
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asked. And then, yeah,
it's just the opportunity came last season when
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they were only going to take four
men on the World Cup circuit and me
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and Zach were battling for that fourth
spot and we kind of both came to
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the realization that if we wanted to
make a push for the next games,
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we have the best opportunity doing it
as doubles team, and our coaches agreed
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and the rest is history. Zak, a year ago, a year and
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a half ago, when you started
doing doubles together, did you imagine you'd
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be on the Olympic team? No, not, not at all, honestly.
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I mean, obviously it was one
of those dreams and it would have
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been super cool if it ended up
happening, but I think we both knew
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all the stars needed to really aligned
for it and it definitely was a very
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rough road when we first started doing
doubles and between injuries and sled problems and
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every single thing you can imagine going
wrong went wrong. So that first year
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we had like, I think it
ended up being only fifty runs for our
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whole first season on a double sled. So that's that's a lot lower than
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normal and not what we wanted.
But ended up kind of pushing through all
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that. Did A lot of summer
training together, a lot of start practice
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and stuff like that, and then
once you got on the sled this year
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it started to really move forward fast
and now now we're here. So even
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a week ago, Sean, did
you imagine you'd be in this the spot?
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The truth is now it was a
very it was a very challenging season.
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It was kind of a fight the
entire time. We were just trying
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to figure out our sled the entire
time and it really took till the last
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race where it felt like we got
everything set up right how we wanted it,
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and it all kind of came together
pretty much at the last minute.
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I believe Tuesday night of last week
you found out there was going to be
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a race off. It was a
Onerun race at the Friday's Nation Cup.
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Can you talk about how there were
three you lest teams buying for that one
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Olympic spot and how you became like
how did it play out? Yeah,
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so we found out Tuesday night,
we trained that Tuesday morning and stuff like
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that, and then, yeah,
we knew we had two days left to
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training before probably the biggest race of
me and Sean's career so far. So
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ended up getting there on Friday morning
and we're feeling good. We made a
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pretty drastic sled change the night before, which we didn't know how it was
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going to go. We are on
a new pair of steals that we haven't
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read the entire season so or our
entire career really as a double sled,
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so we were hoping that was going
to work out. Our big problem during
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the week was the star curve.
We just couldn't get this led to turn
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out all. So from the beginning
of the week we were just saying to
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each other that we don't care how
this race ends up coming out, as
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long as you can make it through
that star curve right. So then we're
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sitting in the start house and we
hear the unfortunate news that Chris and Jason
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ended up crashing and there in their
race run, and all sudden your stomach
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00:05:21.089 --> 00:05:26.889
kind of drops because you know now
it's it's you and Dungan Dana that and
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you're sitting, you know, five
feet apart and you just know one of
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the two of you guys are going
to be going into the Games. So
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it was it was definitely one of
those stomach dropping moments. And ended out
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putting down a really nice run for
our nation's cut run and then we celebrated
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right away just because you're happy with
the run. And then after we had
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to wait two sleds and watched them
in and Dana splits all the way down,
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and I mean my I was I
was going crazy because my heart's beating
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out of my chest as you see
them come down seven hundredth of a second
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behind us. So we are just
screaming at the finish as soon as that
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happened, super excited and couldn't have
couldn't have planned it any better. I
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mean needed all the starts to aligned
and they did, so it was it's
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great that way. You know,
obviously there was a lot of heartbreak last
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week. You know, a handful
of your teammates had the the same goal
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you did, was to make the
two thousand and twenty two Olympic team,
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and a lot of them did not. Being surrounded by people who were going
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through heartbreak, were you able to
celebrate your accomplishment? Yeah, I think
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that need to give a big shout
out to the teammates for being the way
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they are. I mean Jason's tournament
especially. He's been the best role model
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00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:44.120
that way, where his sportsmanship after
this weekend has been next to none.
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And Yeah, from the start he
was he was hugging us and telling us
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how proud he was and stuff like
that. So they definitely made it as
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much as they were. We're sad
something like that. They made it very,
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very nice for us and made us
have the experience that they'd want them
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to have. I was texting with
a friend and I was talking to them
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about how intense the doubles race off
was last week and about how the most
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00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:12.259
season team of mazard tournament crashed and
wouldn't make the team, and I was
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00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:17.250
texting to this friend saying I'm so
impressed with Jason Tournament and his the sportsmanship
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00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:21.410
that he displayed is really kind of
unheard of. Sean, can you tell
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00:07:21.529 --> 00:07:28.410
me and the rest of the listeners
exactly what Jason has offered you and how
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00:07:28.490 --> 00:07:31.800
he's helping you out at this point? Yeah, I mean Jason, he
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really is just a began of sportsmanship. Like every single race we went to
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he'd give me a one on one
track walk on what he does, the
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mistakes he made and what he's learned
from them. Even Chris as well.
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They were both there giving us lines
every every week when they didn't have to,
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and it was really was really cool
experience that he did that. And
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then after the raceoff he offered us
to use him and Chris has double sled
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for the Games because it's a it's
a known quantity. We know that sled
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runs fast and there were still a
lot of uncertainties with our double slid.
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So that's what we're doing here in
Park City is getting that sled fitted for
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us and hopefully it works out great. You Win the race off on Friday.
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There was still question about what would
happen on Saturday, but long story
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short, you pulled it out your
rate. You're on the Olympic team.
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At what point did you guys decide, hey, instead of going to Oberhoff
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and St Maritz for the final two
World Cups before the Games, we're going
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to head to park city and get
on the sled, get it fitted and
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do as much training as we can. Yeah, that happened kind of behind
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the scenes. For us, it
was Jason again pulling this amazing, amazing
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thing off. He came to rob
and he told them, yeah, we
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did, we're going to put a
team first here and he offered up his
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sled and now he's offering up himself
and he's out here in Park City with
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us and as we're doing this interview
he's helping Rob Right now dial and that
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sled to get it ready for us
as soon as possible and then, hopefully
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even this as soon as this afternoon, we can hop on that sled and
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really start figuring it out in these
next twelve days of sliding here and then
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be well prepared for once we get
back to China. Help me understand what
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exactly like you know you you talked
about being in the shop with the sled
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and having to get it ready for
your bodies. What do you think has
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to be changed on the sled to
make it ready for the two of you?
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Yeah, the major difference between the
two doubles teams is I'm a few
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inches taller than Jason. So to
make the sled fit we had to extend
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the cuffin's by about three inches and
that's the most major adjustment that we're doing.
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There's a bunch of small things like
handle position, but we've already adjusted
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the KUPINS and that seemed to go
pretty well. So the next step is
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just hit the ice and see out
slides. Rob Is literally in the in
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the shop working with the fiberglass to
extend the length of those Kupins was so
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it's going to look as we speak
as we speak. So a lot of
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people don't understand or are they're not
familiar with in Luge in general, especially
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the US team, the sleds are
owned by us a luge and they are
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kind of made for your body and
your the coaches make them over the summer
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and and it's you know, that's
generally how it works. However, Jason
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took his own money and purchased the
sled. Is that? Is that the
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sled we're talking about? That that
he's letting you borrow is his personal sled.
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Yeah, it's a mix between,
yeah, the sled he was riding
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back with Matt Mortinson back when their
science gather and parts of the new sled
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that he purchased this season to try, but they never ended up racing on
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it, but they're they're trying to
figure it out. So then we took
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a few parts of that and most
of the old sled and now we're we're
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using that. Gotcha. Wow,
all out of Jason's pocket, which has
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been incredible for him to offer and
all this. Yeah, that's pretty amazing,
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pretty amazing. Can you talk a
little bit about the dynamics on the
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U US loge team? It's an
individual sport, but as a newer doubles
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team, like you talked about the
one on, you know, the one
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on one track walks with the team
with Chris and Jason. But what about
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specifically just this like the family side
of things that you know, us a
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loge team, is your family.
Can you talk about that and how it's
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affected you? Yeah, it's been
really great being the first year traveling with
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the seniors for both me and Sean. They've wocome up us on so well
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and we celebrate, you know,
Thanksgiving together and all these holidays together when
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you're with each other for nine percent
of the year. So they've been really
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great with making it feel like a
home and keeping us positive when things go
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negative and helping us celebrate when things
are going positive. So it's been really
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amazing how they treated us as our
first year and even during these super stressful
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times, have stayed very positive with
us the whole time. Sean, can
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you talk about how covid has a
affected the team culture? Like if you
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the team is very different. The
Dynamics and the way you interact are very
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different than even two years ago,
two seasons ago. How is it different
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now? Yeah, we're a lot
more limited on, obviously where we can
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go. Sometimes even our sliding groups
are affected by it. And Yeah,
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it's it's very challenging traveling. There's
just ayone's always nervous she gonna get covid
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and put the whole team in lockdown. So there's always that stress. But
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at the end of the day the
core is still the same. We're still
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team. You still hang out all
the time in loge. The newest event,
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I think it came about in two
thousand and fourteen at the Games,
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is the team relay. As the
only doubles team you're guaranteed to be racing
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in the event, can you describe
what's the team relay for someone who's never
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watched a lose race before? Yeah, so the team relay is an event
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where first starts with a women's single
slider and then a men's single slider and
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then we anchor the race with being
a double sled. And so first the
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women starts and she has a normal, traditional start and then at the end
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of the run, about twenty meters
past the normal finish line, there's a
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pad that you have to sit up
and hit and as soon as she hits
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that pad it opens up the gates
at the start for our men's led and
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he'll pull off from there, go
down and hit the pad at the bottom
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and then opens up for us.
So it's all from the lowest start of
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whatever the race is. So for
China be the women's and double start.
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Other tracks have different doubles in women's
start. So it's it's whatever the lowest
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start is. So it's definitely a
big change for men's sliders and stuff like
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that, where they have to change
start heights completely and then they also have
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to put in a reaction start and
worry about the pad as well. So
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it's definitely a very exciting race where
you have to have three good runs all
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in a row from three rble from
four different sliders and everyone has to hit
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that pad at the finish and as
soon as the double slid hits that pad,
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your time's over. I know you
said you worked a lot in the
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summer together as on starts. Did
you have much time to work on your
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reaction starts? Yeah, that that
was the one benefit of our new starhouse
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is we did get to do a
lot of relay training. It's going to
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be interesting because we've never actually raced
relay as a doubles team, only as
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singles athletes. So it's going to
be it's going to be a new experience,
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but I think work for it.
Maybe Robert or Jason could drape up
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something over the finish this week and
you can practice sitting up and flapping it.
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Yeah, that's a that's a plan. We're supposed to get some reactions,
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start practice here and hopefully they can
put up a pad for us.
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That's the nice part about being back
on home soil is they do do everything
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we ask for out here in Park
City and we're very thankful for that.
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So hopefully we can get something going. So it feels feels pretty real.
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On the PODCAST we've talked a lot
about the new track and Beijing Sewan.
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Can you describe it to us?
What's the most challenging part for you as
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a doubles team? Beijing is interesting
because there's just so many different aspects of
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other tracks like combined into one.
It's it's a very flowy track, it's
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a very long track and it does
get very fast at the bottom. For
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Doubles, probably the most challenging part
is out of curve five and towards the
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bottom out of curve thirteen and especially
for a bottom man, it's very challenging
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because the curves are very open and
there's not a lot of pressure points,
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so it's almost hard to tell where
you are in the curve and, like,
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without looking visually, like how close
you are to the exit. So
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but the good news is, and
I think this will help level of the
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playing field, is that most athletes
have an equally limited number of runs on
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the track, since covid really limited
who got on the track and when.
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Do you see that as an advantage
for you? Yeah, I definitely do.
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Even in the World Cup there was
everyone was almost all over the place.
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A lot of a couple people doubt
the track in pretty well, but
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you also saw a lot of inconsistent
sliding, which can really play to our
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advantage, especially in the team relay
where you have to put three runs together.
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I think everyone on the US team
is very consistent sliders. So I
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think I'll plan in to our benefit. ZAC. What if the veteran athletes
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told you about the Olympic Games,
you know, like team processing, opening
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ceremony, what like, what to
expect? What if have you heard from
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them? Yeah, right now I'd
say the biggest thing everyone's been preaching is
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enjoy every second of it. They're
all telling me how amazing their first Games
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where and how that's one moment you'll
never have twice. You know it's yes,
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you can go to a second Olympics, but you can never have your
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first Olympics. Sean, what is
the one thing you look forward to the
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most as an Olympian? Probably opening
ceremonies. That seems like the most exciting
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part, and then obviously racing.
What about you, Zach? Yeah,
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I'm really looking forward to the team
relay event. I think will be a
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really cool one and our team is
amazing and they've kept it very, very
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positive. Where it's they're not trying
to make it stressful at all, where
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it's like, Oh, you have
to have that perfect drone, they all
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they all know we've only been doing
doubles for a little over a year and
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they're all just very, very positive
about it. So it's been great that
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way and really looking forward to it. So, like I mentioned, your
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teammates are an OBERHAAP preparing for World
Cup number eight. Before you left,
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did any of them talk about what
they would be working on over the next
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couple world cups leading into the Games. Yeah, mostly people are trying to
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dial in exactly what they want to
kind of use at the Games and really
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get some good momentum into the Games. School. That didn't work out as
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much in our favor as we were
hoping and but we did show really good
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speed there across the board. Unfortunately. Yeah, we did have three crashes,
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but I think, with that being
sad, these next few races are
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really going to be just about confidence
boosting for the whole USA team Sean.
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When do you guys head over to
Beijing? We head to we're going to
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meet up with our team January twenty
two, and then I think from there
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we're gonna head over to team processing. Where are you meeting the team and
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where is team processing? We're meeting
up with the team in Zurich and I'm
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not even sure where team processing is
quite yet. We're kind of still playing
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it by here. We haven't by
that. Yeah, we're just listening to
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whatever to people tell us to do. So it's been like fill this form
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in that form. So it's it's
all that fun stuff. Right now.
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What are you guys doing to stay
healthy and covid free? Because we're clocks
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ticking. I mean if, God
forbid, you got Covid, it would
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be bad news. Yeah, right
now we're out in park city and we
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have our own little apartment here that
is just the four of us, just
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us, Robin Jason, and we're
doing stuff like Insta car for all our
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groceries and really just only staying at
the apartment and at the track. The
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weight room we're using is up at
the top of the track and there's no
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one else using it for I think
this whole months. So really just staying
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away from people as much as possible. Sean, normally families are really big
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part of the Olympic Games. They
get to go and experience it and have
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a really good time with you guys
and cheer you on, and obviously that's
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not happening this year because of covid. Have they talked to you about how
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bummed out they are and let you
know what they're going to be doing instead
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of heading over? Yeah, I'm
really sad that they aren't going to be
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able to be there and watch the
slide, but USU loses hosting a watch
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party and like placid, and I
think they're all going to be there.
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ZAC. What about your family?
Yeah, they're planning on doing the same
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thing. I think there is also
now a watch party out here in Park
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City as well that Tmosa is hosting. So I think my parents and family
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around like placed are going to be
up in La placed and then anyone from
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the West Coast, for my family, I think, is going to come
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out here and join the TM USA
one in Park City. Oh, that's
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awesome. That'll be fun. Well, I don't want to teach keep you
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any longer. I know you've got
a lot of work to do and some
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training, hopefully to do today,
and I don't want to keep you from
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that. So just thanks so much
for chatting and I know I speak for
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everyone when we say good luck and
slide fast. Thank you very much and
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thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. What a fascinating story.
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I would say it's almost unheard of
that a team who got together just
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a year before makes the Olympic team. This is a team that will not
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only be fun to watch this February
in Beijing, but also heading into the
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two thousand and twenty six games as
well. Are you following our Olympians on
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social media? The next few weeks
will offer a really cool insight into what
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it's like to be an Olympian,
and social media is by far the best
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00:21:36.769 --> 00:21:41.569
place to see their perspectives. Make
sure you follow us a log as well
295
00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:45.690
on facebook, twitter and Instagram,
and go to us a loge dot org
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00:21:45.009 --> 00:21:49.240
for more in depth information on the
sport and the team. Be Sure you're
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00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:52.720
sharing this podcast with all of your
friends and family. We'd love to spread
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00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:56.039
the world of Louge as far and
wide as possible, and this will help
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00:21:56.079 --> 00:22:00.359
our athletes get as many fans as
possible. Thank you for listening to blink,
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a podcast about what it takes to
win a lose race in the blink
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00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:06.750
of an eye.
