Cesana Pariol, Italy – Courtney Zablocki has come a long way from her startup sliding days of riding mattresses and laundry baskets down the staircase of her family home. But she still has another step to take.
The 25-year-old from Highlands Ranch posted the best U.S. finish in the 42-year history of women’s Olympic luge competition Tuesday, placing fourth behind a trio of Germans.
Zablocki’s combined time of 3 minutes, 8.852 seconds after four runs was .873 seconds off the pace set by Sylke Otto, who successfully defended the gold medal she won at Salt Lake City in 2002 with a time of 3:07.979. She was followed by teammate Silke Kraushaar in 3:08.115 for the silver medal and bronze medalist Tatjana Huef- ner in 3:08.460.
It was the second consecutive medal sweep for the historically dominant German team and the sixth since the event gained Olympic status in 1964. Of the 36 medals awarded in the history of the sport, 27 have gone to Germans, eight of them gold.
Zablocki found a rare chink in the German armor on the first day of the two-day competition, finishing third in the first run down the track. But she couldn’t sustain the pace for the final three runs. Entering the second day only .004 seconds away from a podium position, her medal chances slipped further out of reach on each of her two final runs, officially ending as she slid to the sixth-fastest time in the last race. Huefner, the woman she was chasing, nailed her line for the race’s fastest time, .255 seconds ahead of Zablocki.
“I’m really happy with my finish, but at the same time I am very disappointed,” Zablocki said. “I really thought I could get up there and, you know, it was so close but yet so far away.”
Zablocki could not pinpoint where she lost the race or, for that matter, where the Germans won it. She attributed the German dominance to experience.
“They have a lot of depth and a lot of experience,” Zablocki said. “Both the Silkes are 10 years my senior … when they’re that much older than you and have that much more experience, how do you compete with that?”
Zablocki is the only woman on the U.S. team with any Olympic experience, finishing 13th in 2002. The previous best American results at the Olympics went to Cammy Myler in 1992 and Becky Wilczak in 2002, both of whom slid to fifth place.
Erin Hamlin, the only other American competitor Tuesday, finished 12th with a time of 3:11.290. Teammate Samantha Retrosi suffered a concussion the day before when she crashed in her second run.
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
