CALGARY — Sam Edney turned his final two runs down the luge track here into a World Cup silver medal and a memory that will last a lifetime.

His young teammate Mitchel Malyk, who owned his home track record for about 15 minutes on what turned into a fabulous Friday for the Canadian men’s team, will have plenty of time to improve upon his eventual fourth-place finish. He’s only 22, the future of Canadian men’s luging, according to Edney, who is on his way out of the World Cup scene.

“Not only did I need it, but the team needed it for sure,” said Edney, 33. “The men’s team especially, we had some results that weren’t up to what we were wanting in Europe, so to get this in front of the home crowd, on my last race in Calgary, is a pretty special one. I knew it was there. It’s just kind of a dream come true.”

Edney owns a full set of World Cup medals now, gold from here in 2014 and a bronze in PyeongChang, South Korea. He was fourth fastest down the hill in each of the two runs on Friday to finish at 1:29.138, showing consistency that comes with repetition and home ice advantage over the Europeans.

Malyk, who broke a 15-year-old track record by posting a 44.490-second time on his first run, figured he’s slid down this track 2,000 times. Edney laughed that he would have four times that number by now.

“The home track advantage, it’s huge,” said Edney. “We’re trying to catch them on their stomping grounds five times a year. We’re lucky we have this race in Calgary and Whistler now, that we can show that we’re top calibre athletes. We can compete with them when we’ve got the same advantage they do in volume of runs.

“This is a big step for us mentally. We’re moving into the second half of the season, we’re nine weeks away from the Olympics. It’s a good moment for us. A lot of confidence comes from this. We trust our sleds. We trust ourselves.”

Malyk said he is encouraged by the finish, though he wasn’t concentrating on placement.

“It was a personal best ever. That’s very exciting. I just focused on putting it down the track as fast as I could and wasn’t too worried about the result.”

That it included a temporary record was, as he said, very cool.

“I took a little screen shot. It sadly fell.”

He lost it to the double Olympic gold medallist, Germany’s Felix Loch, who checked in with a 44.274-second run and followed it up with the best time in the second run as well, to win the gold medal in 1:28.752. Russia’s Roman Repilov finished with the bronze.

Edney said the fact that Malyk held the track record even as long as he did is a good sign for the future.

“I think it’s fitting. I was chasing it for what, 16 years now. I think Mitch threw down a solid first run. He deserves it. He’s considered the future of luge in Canada. It’s an honour and he should carry it with him proudly.”

dbarnes@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sportsdanbarnes

Source link