The IOC offers the following Video News Release to all news agencies, broadcasters and online news platforms free of charge. On a typical winter’s morning in upstate New York, a couple of sports mad 11-year-old school kids sat transfixed in front of their televisions, not quite believing what was unfolding before their young eyes. It was luge at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 in Russia. From thousands of miles away, Sam Day and Sam Eckert felt inspired. Both decided luge looked such a crazy sport they wanted to try it out. Six years later they are at the Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) Lausanne 2020 as partners in the luge men’s double; their Olympic inspired dream of competing in a “mad” sport at the highest level very much alive. After watching events at Sochi 2014 unfold on television, Day and Eckert both badgered their parents into signing them up with the “USA Luge Slider Search” programme. They happily did so. Eckert from Wilmington and Day from Wantagh, both in New York, soon became united as luge partners, training at Lake Placid, venue for the Olympic Winter Games 1980.
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