Erin Hamlin’s long-shot bid for a medal looks a bit stronger at the halfway point of the women’s luge. She raced to the second fastest time in the first run, then improved her start to go a little faster in the second run. The American veteran stands third behind two German sliders.
Date: 10-Feb
Sport: Luge
Event: Women’s, runs 1 and 2 (of four)
How U.S. fared: Hamlin is in terrific shape. She’s just 0.052 seconds behind second-place Tatjana Hüfner and 0.216 ahead of Russia’s Natalia Khoreva.
Kate Hansen, having a bit of a breakout season, is a solid 10th. Summer Britcher moved up from 19th after her first run to 15th.
What happened: Natalie Geisenberger of Germany is simply peerless. She set the track record at 49.891 in the first run and nearly matched that at 49.923 in the second. No one else broke 50. Geisenberger leads by 0.766 seconds, an eternity in luge.
The second German, Hüfner, broke Geisenberger’s start record in the second run to move ahead of Hamlin. But the third, Anke Wischnewski, is eighth. Still, very little separates her from fourth-place Russian Khoreva. Between them are two Canadians, Alex Gough and Kimberley McRae, and Russian favorite Tatyana Ivanova.
No one crashed, though NBC got a bit of mileage out of a practice crash by Sandra Robatscher and showed it to the confused but smiling Italian in the mixed zone for an offbeat postrace interview.
Duresport.com 