WHISTLER, B.C. — Canada's young luge team came into the world championships in Whistler, B.C., looking for experience.
The experience they already possessed paid off in a big way Saturday when the squad used their knowledge of the tricky home track to capture bronze in the team relay.
“It doesn’t even feel real," said Embyr-Lee Susko, who raced the women's singles portion of the four-leg race.
"And then for us to be able to pull this off altogether as a team, it really shows how solid we are as a team on this track. … We took hundreds of runs here, and it showed today with the consistency that we were able to have across all of our slides.”
Devin Wardrope and Cole Anthony Zajanski raced the men's doubles portion for Canada, while Theo Downey took care of the men's singles. Beattie Podulsky and Kailey Allan capped the performance with the women's doubles.
The Canadians posed a time of two minutes 51.641 seconds.
They were 1.280 seconds behind a German team that claimed its fourth gold of the week, thanks to Julia Taubitz (women's singles), Hannes Orlamuender and Paul Constantin Gubitz (men's doubles), Max Langenhan (men's singles), and Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal (women's doubles).
Austria grabbed silver, its third medal of the 2025 world championships.
Several of the nine nations competing in the team relay struggled toward the end of the icy track.
Latvia's women's doubles team of Marta Robezniece and Kitija Bogdanova crashed and flipped their sled. They were helped off the track and did not finish the race.
The American men's doubles sled of Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa skidded out of the final turn, but were able to readjust and hit the paddle, keeping their team in the race. The U.S. finished fourth.
Italy was disqualified for a false start.
The Canadians made good use of their innate knowledge of the track, Susko said.
“We've run through so many different scenarios on this track of messing different things up that, even if people had small blips in their run, they had the skills in their tool box to be able to fix them without anyone really being able to notice," said the 19-year-old athlete, who hails from Whistler.
The bronze medal is Canada's fifth ever in team relay at the world championships, and its first since 2016.
At 23, Zajanski was the oldest Canadian in the group Saturday. A third-place finish is a big step for the young crew, said Sam Edney, Luge Canada's high performance director.
“I think it’s validation of the work that's been done over the past couple years," he said. "It’s a starting point. I think we've got a young team — we've been saying it all along — but it's really just that this is the start of something good.”
Earlier on Saturday, Langenhan won a second straight men's singles title with a two-run combined time of 1:39.922 seconds.
Repeating as world champion means a lot, he said.
"I think last year, Altenberg is one of my favourite tracks. And then here in Whistler, normally it's every time so (expletive) close, and every small mistake costs you so much time," he said. "But in the end, I'm super happy with these two runs.”
Langenhan finished 0.135 seconds ahead of teammate Felix Loch, who posted a blistering time of 49.909 seconds on his second run.
“I was under a little bit of stress after Felix putting such a good time down. But in the end I’m super happy," Langenhan said.
"I think it’s like the best compliment for the whole team. They put in so much energy throughout the whole season. And if you're bringing them one and two, I think they are super stoked.”
Austria's Nico Gleirscher took bronze.
Langenhan also won gold in the new discipline of mixed singles on Thursday with Taubitz, who finished first in the women's singles race on Friday.
Canada's three sleds did not make the cut for the second round of the men's singles race.
Downey finished the first run in 50.815 seconds for 22nd place, Dylan Morse was 26th and Bastian van Wouw was 28th in his first-ever race at the senior level.
Competing against luge veterans was "awesome" said the 18-year-old van Wouw.
“I’m always watching the livestreams of their races," he said. "And now being able to be a part of it is just unreal.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2025.
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press