Canada’s best slide into retirement
Alex Gough put it best about sliding off into the sunset.
“It’s been a hell of a ride,” said the 31-year-old Calgarian this week on the eve of her retirement from competitive sports.
“Absolutely there will be hugs (Saturday morning at WinSport). There may be some beer, too.” Yup, it’ll be a celebration all right. Gough goes out hand in hand with good friend Sam Edney, retiring as Canada’s most decorated female and male luge athletes.
Edney will await the arrival of Gough at the finish line after her final run at 9:35 a.m., a ceremonial slide at the Viessmann Luge World Cup in Whistler, B.C., on the track that played such a critical role in their development.
They’ll be joined by family, friends and former coaches, teammates and support staff.
“It really is mostly about the people that I got to experience it all with,” said Gough, 31, reflecting on a heralded career that included 13 years on the national team. “I think it’s been an incredible journey with lots of major highs and some real challenges.”
Gough was one of the globe’s best on a sleigh.
In February 2011, the Calgarian became the first Canadian luger to win gold in a World Cup race. That same season, Gough won the country’s first world championship women’s luge medal when she claimed bronze.
Gough slid to another bronze at the 2013 world championships in Whistler, B.C.
Then came South Korea and the 2018 Winter Games, where she became the first and only Canadian luge athlete to win an Olympic medal in singles racing with her triumph in Pyeongchang. Gough also won a silver medal in the team relay at those Games with Edney and the tandem of Tristan Walker and Justin Snith to become a double Olympic medallist.
“Obviously, the Pyeongchang Games in February was the height of where I got to, and where we got to as a team,” Gough said. “It was a culmination of all the steps — the successes and the setbacks along the way — and all of it came together in the right way in February.
“Even if I were to continue and try again for another four years (of the Olympic cycle), I don’t think I could beat this past year. With all of the story of Sochi and coming full circle, and with being able to be there with that particular group of people, especially with what we’ve been through and with how long we’ve been together, it was really special in Pyeongchang.
“I’m very at peace with the decision to retire,” Gough added. “All the little things you don’t really get to do when you’re focused on sport, I’m getting a chance to do now. So now I’m officially saying goodbye to competing and luge. It’s a good decision. It’s time.”
Meanwhile, Edney celebrates a career that included three world championship medals and that silver in the team relay in Pyeongchang.
Edney was the first Canadian man to win a World Cup race, sliding to gold at Calgary’s World Cup stop — along with earning a World Cup silver medal at COP. He also added World Cup bronze at the Olympic track in South Korea.
To boot, the Calgarian finished sixth in singles at the Pyeongchang Games, surpassing his seventhplace finish at Vancouver 2010 for Canada’s best Olympic result among men.
“It feels really special — there are moments that I’ll cherish for a long time,” Edney said. “Each season had some amazing highs and some crazy lows. I almost retired after the world championships in 2017.
“I had, I think, the worst world championship results of my career, and I was at what was supposed to be the peak of my athletic career.”
One week later, on the track in South Korea, Edney became the first Canadian men’s singles luger to stand on a World Cup podium outside Canada after winning bronze in the Pyeongchang test event.
Of course, the 2018 Games followed with that silver success in the team relay that was arguably his most memorable moment.
“It’s easy to say Pyeongchang and the Olympics and winning the silver medal, yeah,” Edney said. “That’s the natural moment that everybody’s going to think of, because it’s fresh on the mind.
“But then I think back to all the other incredible memories that I’ve had, like qualifying for my first Olympics,” Edney continued.
“It was a big moment, because it’s something you strive for and you want to achieve so badly, and then it happens, and it makes all that sacrifice worth it . ... It’s a really amazing feeling just to be able to say that you’re a part of Team Canada and you’re representing the Maple Leaf at that level.”