Tristan Walker & Justin Snith

For doubles luge competitors Tristan Walker and Justin Snith it was all about laying down two good runs at the Olympic Games.

It started as a dream, became a goal, and ultimately turned into reality as they placed 15th Feb. 17 at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

“Our two starts definitely weren’t what we were hoping for,” Snith recalled of the Olympic runs a few days after the competition.

“We need to work on the starts and conditioning and strength. Flexibility is a really big part of it . . . if we can combine those things along with the experience we have gained I think we can excel on the World Cup circuit and at the next Games as well.”

Walker, a Bearspaw native, and Snith, who has family connections to Springbank and the Cochrane area, had already surprised everyone by qualifying for the Games. After all, the two are less than one year out of high school and rookies on the World Cup circuit.

In the weeks leading up to the Games, Snith said he and Walker were “flying by the seat of our pants” as the community turned out in droves at local events to support the young Olympians.

And the drama didn’t end for the sliding duo, who had been paired together just two years prior, when they arrived in Vancouver.

Top: Local luge competitors Tristan Walker and Justin Snith wave to the thousands in attendance at the Whistler Sliding Centre after completing their Olympic runs. The duo, who are rookies on the World Cup circuit this season, ended up 15th. Photo by Bruce Walker.

The day of the opening ceremonies, Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili died after a crash in training on the Olympic track. As a result, officials lowered the starts for all luge competitions and made minor modifications to the track.

Walker and Snith were forced to begin their runs at the junior start; the much-discussed home-field advantage for the Canadian luge team, which had spent countless hours training from the normal starts in Whistler, had been lost

“I think we would have had a lot better chance if we had gone from the original start,” Walker said. “I think it was a freak accident. It was really terrible what happened, the worst thing that could happen. They made the changes they had to make to the track, but I don’t think it was necessary to move the starts.”

Having said that, both Walker and Snith said they were satisfied with finishing 15th. Snith noted that all of the long hours spent training were made worthwhile when he and Walker reached the bottom of the Whistler track and were completely overwhelmed by the thousands of screaming Canadian fans in attendance.

“I am still at a loss over all of it,” Snith said. “It was truly indescribable.”

In that crowd was Walker’s father Bruce. He described the crowd’s deafening roar as “absolutely amazing.”
“From the moment they called their names, to the (start) to the time they stepped off the track it was just constant cheering and cowbells and people,” he said. “It was the biggest party ever.”

Tristan Walker and Justin Snith definitely had one of the more boisterous cheering sections at the Olympic luge competition. From left to right: Max Linnell, Lochlan Walker, Andrew Pifko, Matt Medryk, Amy Ostick, Josh Hartloper, Jessica Phillips and Asia Walker. Photo by Bruce Walker.

Tristan said the wild atmosphere has continued off the luge track as well, as he and Snith have journeyed to numerous other events to support their Canadian teammates.

“There are just so many people. I have never seen anything like it,” Tristan said. “My favourite part is the spontaneous outbreak of O Canada in the streets. It’s awesome.”

And their first taste of Olympic competition has only fueled the duo’s desire to continue sliding and hopefully take a run at gold at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. When their two runs were combined together, the young Canadian team ended up roughly 1.5 seconds behind the gold medalists from Austria — a lifetime in a sport like luge, where winners are often decided by thousandths of a second

“Some of the older, more legendary sliders are moving on,” Tristan said.
“I don’t think there’s a better time to be starting a doubles luge career.”

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