UTAH OLYMPIC PARK — Four U.S. sliders cut through the early morning chill to win silver and bronze in doubles luge Friday — only the third and fourth Olympic medals Uncle Sam has claimed in the sport.
Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin won silver in a heated competition at Utah Olympic Park; Clay Ives and Chris Thorpe got the bronze. Germans Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch won the event, keeping the U.S. from that elusive luge gold.
For one Yank — Ives, born to an American mother and Canadian father — it was his first Olympic medal in three tries.
Like most kids growing up near the U.S./Canada border, Ives fancied himself a hockey player until his dad decided the sport was too expensive for a farmer's kid. To save money on hockey equipment, Ives' father built a luge track behind the family farmhouse and made his children slide instead of skate.
Even now the family welcomes corporate vacationers to the Bancroft, Ontario, farm for luge camps — sort of like a luge dude ranch — and every New Year's Eve Ives and his siblings toast adult beverages before hitting their father's track in the midnight cold.
Friday morning at Utah Olympic Park, the decision to slide instead of skate paid off as Ives won bronze along with partner Thorpe.
"When I rolled out of bed this morning I said (winning) is everything. I don't work 15 years just to compete. I want to win," said Ives, who admitted telling countless children in elementary schools that competing, not winning, is important.
For Thorpe and Ives, a bronze medal is a win — it's only the second time they've been on the podium at an international event. The first was two weeks ago in the season-ending World Cup in Winterberg, Germany, where they placed second.
They peaked at just the right moment.
Friday's medals at Salt Lake's 2002 Winter Games means Yanks have now taken four of the last six Olympic medals in doubles luge.
Grimmette, Muskegon, Mich., and Martin, Palo Alto, Calif., took bronze in the 1998 Nagano, Japan Games and Thorpe, Marquette, Mich., teaming with now-retired Gordy Sheer, earned silver then.
Despite the experience and silver medal under his belt, Thorpe said he was sick when he saw the Utah Olympic Park crowd —15,000 strong — rooting for the Americans.
"I've never been more nervous in my life," he said. "I don't think I can be more nervous, ever."
Ives, feeling the jumpiness, reminded his partner that Thorpe's wife, Christie, is having a baby in a couple weeks.
"If she can do that we can do this," he said.
Heading into the day's second and final run, Thorpe and Ives sat in second. They were bumped, by an imperceptible .004 seconds, to third as Grimmette and Martin clocked the fastest run of the second heat.
"I was pretty nervous for the first run so I sat up," Grimmette said. "I wasn't as aerodynamic as I would've liked."
The second run was nearly perfect.
The Americans, then, held first and second with one sled remaining — Lietner and Resch, the leaders, who established a new track record of 42.953 in their first run.
It looked as if the Yanks would take gold and silver as the leaders bumped the wall coming out of curve 14; however, when the Germans crossed the line they posted a two-run total of 1 minute 26.082 seconds, .134 faster than the Americans.
"They gave us a little excitement coming out of 14," Martin said.
Grimmette, 31, and Martin, 28, might continue sliding, but for Thorpe, 31, and Ives, 29, it was their last race.
Sliding before the largest, most raucous crowd of their career was a great way to go out.
"In 17 years of sliding I've never felt that much emotion or stimulus on the sled," Thorpe said. "In the bottom part of the track (on the second run) I felt we could barely hold it together. I though we were going to break into pieces."
E-MAIL: bsnyder@desnews.com