A pair of Russian luge athletes were confirmed Monday as qualifiers for next month’s Milan Cortina Olympics, meaning they will compete against Ukrainian sliders on the sport’s biggest stage.
The International Luge Federation — which announced the 78 singles and doubles sleds that have qualified for the games — included Russian men’s singles slider Roman Repilov and women’s singles slider Daria Olesik on its preliminary list.
They will compete, just as they did in World Cup races that they were allowed to enter this season, as neutral athletes at the Olympics as part of the sanctions against Russian federations in response to that country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the war that has continued since.
Germany and Austria qualified the maximum of 12 athlete spots and nine sleds for the Olympics. Host Italy and the U.S. each had 11 athletes and eight sleds qualify, while Ukraine and Latvia each had 10 sliders and seven sleds make the Olympic fields.
Teams could get as many as three men’s singles, three women’s singles, two men’s doubles and one women’s doubles sled into the games. There were nine nations — the U.S., Germany, Austria, Italy, Latvia, China, Poland, Romania and Ukraine — with at least one sled in every discipline, meaning those will be the nations that compete in the Olympic team relay as well.
Ukrainian sliders — and some from other nations — have complained that the Russians should not have been given the chance by the International Olympic Committee and the sport federations to try to qualify for Milan Cortina, neutral flag status or otherwise.
Certain sports federations let Russians try to qualify for the games, but only after an independent review process to ensure that they were neutral — meaning they did not publicly support the war and are not affiliated with Russia’s military or other forces.
The Ukrainian Luge Federation said the clearance process, at least with regard to their sport, was flawed.
“The FIL and the IOC said they are neutral, but I don’t think so,” Ukrainian men’s luge athlete Anton Dukach said earlier this season. “We have proof and we already sent evidence that they are not neutral.”
USA Luge
USA Luge’s Olympic roster was essentially in place before Monday; all that was left was for FIL’s announcement of the quota spots for each nation. And the math that went into those calculations was clear this past weekend with the results of the fifth and final Olympic qualifying event.
The trio of women’s singles sliders will be the same as it was for the 2022 Beijing Games: Summer Britcher was nominated to her fourth Olympic team, Emily Fischnaller made her third and Ashley Farquharson made her second.
Jonny Gustafson is now a two-time men’s singles Olympian, and he’ll be joined in that field by Olympic rookie Matthew Greiner — a past junior world championships medalist.
Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa will make their first Olympic trip in men’s doubles, as will now two-time Olympians Zach Di Gregorio and Sean Hollander. And in women’s doubles, making its Olympic medal debut and a race where no nation got more than one sled into the field, Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby will race for the U.S.
It was extremely difficult for women’s doubles sleds to make the field: The FIL rules essentially carved a path for the top sled from each nation to qualify for the Olympics, and that meant four of the top nine women’s sleds in the qualifying standings — including Maya Chan and Sophia Gordon of the U.S., who were sixth on that list — were left out.
Nation breakdown
Of the 106 spots awarded to luge athletes for the Olympics, 66 of them went to sliders from Germany, Austria, the U.S., Italy, Ukraine and Latvia.
Romania has seven, while Canada, China and Poland each have six. Slovakia has five, Sweden and Russia each have two, and six nations — Argentina, Switzerland, South Korea, Australia, Japan and the Czech Republic — each qualified one slider.
Returning medalists
There will be new gold medalists in the singles races: 2022 Olympic champions Johannes Ludwig and Natalie Geisenberger, both of Germany, have since retired.
Men’s singles silver medalist Wolfgang Kindl of Austria has qualified for these games, as has reigning bronze medalist Dominik Fischnaller — the Italian husband of U.S. slider Emily Fischnaller.
The three-time Olympic doubles champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt of Germany are back for a run at more gold. Also back: 2022 Olympic silver doubles medalist Toni Eggert of Germany and 2022 bronze medalist Thomas Steu of Austria, albeit with different partners this year. Eggert now slides with Florian Mueller and Steu slides with Kindl, who will seek to medal in both events.
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