Alex Gough stood atop the podium in Russia two years ago and she made history. The blonde Calgarian with the lip ring was the first-ever Canadian to win a World Cup luge race. She also put an end to an absurd winning streak owned by the German women: They hadn’t lost in 105 World Cup contests.
The 26-year-old, now the reigning and two-time World Championship bronze medallist, opened the luge season last weekend with a bronze at a World Cup stop in Lillehammer.
Should she step on the podium in Sochi, Gough will again make history. No Canadian luger (yes, that’s what they’re called) has ever won an Olympic medal since the sport debuted in Innsbruck in 1964.
On the eve of the second World Cup of the luge season, which kicks off Saturday in Innsbruck, Sportsnet caught up with Gough via email.
Sportsnet: Were you expecting to get off to such a strong start?
Alex Gough: I really went into the race in Lillehammer with no expectations. I haven’t raced there since I was a junior in 2004, and we trained in a group where there weren’t any other strong sliders, so I had no way of judging where I might sit in the field. I tend to like racing without expectations anyway—I always keep my focus on having fast starts and good runs rather than trying to achieve a certain result.
SN: This week you’re in Innsbruck. Are you a fan of the track?
AG: I have been to Innsbruck every year that I’ve been on the team, and I really like sliding here. It’s one of the easiest tracks in the world and one of the shortest for women, so it can be extremely tight. The biggest challenge is to do as little driving as possible, but maintain the most ideal lines, since any deviation from that line means you’re driving extra metres on the track, and losing time.
That said, I really do love racing here. It’s a beautiful place to be, they put on a great event, and I have had a fair amount of success here in the past.
SN: You’re shorter than a lot of competitors on the circuit, and you’ve talked about how having shorter arms is obviously a disadvantage on the start. How are you getting around that?
AG: I’m not the tallest girl on circuit at five-foot-seven, and my limbs are proportionate to my height. I have worked hard to be as strong and as technically proficient as I can, so that I am able to maximize my speed at the start. Over the past five years I have gone from being a pretty mediocre/poor starter to one of the top in the world. The women who are six feet will always have the advantage of leverage, but I’ve found a way to compete on their level, and I’ll continue to work on improving and getting as fast as I can.
SN: How have you managed to become one of the best drivers in the world? Do you practise away from the track, like when you’re lying in bed?
AG: Luge isn’t really something you can practise anywhere but on a luge track. You can do some training on wheels in the summer, and we do lots of imagery, but neither truly compare to being on the track on ice. I have always had pretty good feeling on a sled, so I am able to react to and drive a corner by feeling where the pressures are rather than relying on timing or visual cues. We also do a lot of volume training early in the season, where we’ll do 10–12 runs a day, and by the end you’re too tired to think, so your body and instinct take over.
SN: The German women are insanely dominant. How do you beat them? Does it require the race of a lifetime?
AG: The Germans have four tracks in Germany alone, and there are four in all of North America. They have a ton of depth in their program and a lot of funding poured into research and development. However, since we’ve had German coaches join Team Canada and overhaul our training program, we’ve closed the gap on them significantly, and even beaten them on a few occasions. Our head coach [Wolfgang Staudinger] has a favourite saying that the Germans “only cook with water,” meaning that if we work as hard or harder than them, there’s no reason we can’t be as good or better.
Women’s Olympic luge opens Monday, Feb. 10 at the Sliding Centre Sanki in the Mountain Cluster.