EDNEY BEGINS FAREWELL TO ‘AWESOME CAREER’
Luge racer has given almost two decades to that most unforgiving of Olympic sports
Sam Edney was crying.
After a race that was shocking in its fourth and final run — even the relentlessly successful German Felix Loch, aiming for a third Olympic gold in the men’s singles luge, was eaten up by the track and finished fifth, just ahead of Edney — it was all over for him.
This was his last hurrah.
On a bitter cold night on the mountain, with snow falling in picturesque fashion, it was his final singles event.
He still has the team relay on Thursday, but this was the beginning of the end and it isn’t going to last much longer. These next few days will be sweet and sad and difficult. Saying goodbye to a great love always is.
As Canadian head coach Wolf Staudinger put it with trademark black humour: “It’s very unfortunate Sam is so old he has to leave us now and go into the real world, to make a story short.” Edney is 33.
He started luge at the age of 14, not much older than Reed Watts, the hot young prospect of Canada’s men’s team, was when they met in Whistler at the Vancouver Olympics.
Watts’ mom worked in the library, which for the duration of the Games was turned into Canada House, so Watts had pull and got to visit the place a lot. He was maybe 10 or 11; a picture of the big moment shows a charming kid with a round flushed face.
He’d just watched Edney race and there, larger than life, right before his eyes, he was with Jeff Christie, another veteran luger who has since retired.
Watts was too star-struck to approach, but somehow Edney and Christie found him or pushed Watts towards them, and Watts’ dad snapped the picture.
Now, for a few days more, Watts is Edney’s teammate, and then he’ll try to follow in his footsteps. Watts says Edney was a generous and wonderful mentor from the very beginning.
Edney has given almost 20 years to this hard and unforgiving sport.
Those who liken it to tobogganing are dreaming. Sliders hurtle down curving icy tracks at speeds of upwards of 130 klicks an hour.
Perhaps it’s possible for the human male to be in a more physically vulnerable position than doing this, while lying on his back on a tiny sled, legs sticking out, family jewels completely unprotected, but the prospects don’t leap to mind.
Edney put in thousands of runs just like this, getting better and better, by fractions of fractions and millimetres, and then trying to make it consistent: The singles event always consists of four runs and the man with the fastest total wins.
He got close to the podium — most notably in Sochi, where the Canucks finished fourth in the team relay, behind a now-tainted Russian squad which last December was stripped of its medals then reinstated just this month.
His result Sunday was a Canadian best, yet Edney was disappointed.
“It’s something I’m still trying to put words to,” he said afterwards. “It was a close race from the start. We knew whoever was able to put down four consistent runs (would win), and look at who stands at the top of the podium now, a guy who deserves it because he did that.
“For myself, I think I’m a little bit disappointed right now because I fell off the pace in that third run and that was kind of the moment that I guess I just kind of put myself behind the eightball.”
Little did Edney know, of course, that Loch uncharacteristically would flame out, leaving room at the top of the podium for Austrian David Gleirscher, Chris Mazdzer of the United States and another German, Johannes Ludwig — and, on a different night, for Edney too.
What-might-have-been thoughts, he said, were part of his disappointment. “I’ll probably go back and try to relieve that third run, what was going on, replay it and wish I could have another chance at it.”
But mostly, he felt for Loch, who remained on his sled a long while after, clearly crushed. “That’s a really tough hit for him to take,” Edney said. “He’s a great slider and a great champion and my heart goes out to him right now.”
On the third run, he said, he didn’t feel right. “I think I lost a bit on the top, and I think that set the feeling for that run.
“I was just a bit off, and I felt a bit tight on the sled, you know, and I got back up to the top and I was able to reset and re-focus for the fourth run, it was just (not enough).”
Someone asked him about this being his last go, and how he felt about what luge had given him.
His eyes filled up and reddened and then he began to weep. It was clear that the landmine in the field was the way the question had been framed: Luge had indeed been a gift.
“Yeah, it’s an awesome career and I’m really proud of the steps that I’ve made and it’s been really enjoyable, a really amazing experience.”
And then he headed off, to join a group of family and friends and his wife Elyce. “I’m going to soak up tonight,” he said.
As Staudinger put it, sixth place at the Olympics “is not something that you have to hide,” and beyond that, there is the long and honourable career, the bonds with the other big men who do this sport so merciless that, as Staudinger said, “You can walk away with tears in your eyes, not having done much wrong, with lead on your shoes.
“I’m sad to see him go. He’s a great guy, and I hope he sticks around the sport for the future, helps the young bucks … (give them) the wisdom not to do mistakes, reinventing the wheel, a round one square. All those things add up and hopefully he can prevent the young bucks making mistakes.”
Watts says that luge hurts, when the sled kicks into a wall, there are ice burn and bruises. “Learn through pain,” he said cheerfully.
Asked if he can see himself spending, as Edney did, the next two decades doing this, Watts grinned.
“I’m doing one quad (four runs) at a time,” he said.
He’s all of 20. He finished 12th, a terrific result for him. He seemed blissfully unaware of the torch in his hand. But it has been passed, sure as Sam Edney cried on that mountain.