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Ridgefield's West Wins Silver In Singles At World Junior Luge Championships

RIDGEFIELD, Conn. – Tucker West of Ridgefield earned a silver medal last week at the Junior Luge World Championships held in Lillehammer, Norway.

Ridgefield's Tucker West finished second at the Junior Luge World Championships in Norway.

Ridgefield's Tucker West finished second at the Junior Luge World Championships in Norway.

Photo Credit: File

Competing on the course where the 1994 Winter Olympic Games were held, West hit the wall at Curve 13 on both runs. Still, he maintained his speed to grab the silver medal overall.

The race was the final singles race in the international junior ranks for West. He finished fourth in the team relay on Saturday with Gracie Weinberg. West and Weinberg missed the podium by two-tenths of a second.

“Both runs I took a pretty hard hit out of (curve) 13 and bled a lot of time,” West said on the USA Luge site of his singles race. “So it’s nice to see that I’m carrying speed since we’ll be back here for the World Cup (in two weeks).

“I came here hoping to win, but I can still be thrilled with second place. It’s the best result I’ve had in junior worlds.”

The 19-year-old, who was also part of a gold medal in the team relay at the 2012 Youth Olympic Games, was fourth after the first leg and rallied to finish 0.04 behind winner Roman Repilov of Russia. Repilov, the Junior World Cup overall leader, staged his own comeback in the final run as he improved from second place.

The winner’s two heats totaled 1 minute, 39.823 seconds. West, a student at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., was timed in 1:39.866.

West added that after getting many runs in Norway in the opening training camp of the fall season, the track has changed.

“In the fall I was really confident with the track,” he said. “But throughout the time we’ve been away, the ice on it built up which changes the profiles of the curves and how the track works in general. So this trip around it was like a new track for me. Things just didn’t go according to plan. Training was not the best for me throughout the week. It was a struggle every single day and that reflected in the race.”

West was named the U.S. Olympic Committee's Athlete of the Month for December.

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