Elana Morrison, Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa win in Park City 

Park City (USA Luge/FIL) Elana Morrison, Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa take the USA Luge junior titles in Park City to close out the season. It was literally a march to the top this month for USA Luge's Marcus Mueller.

He was one of 29 athletes who competed in the US Junior National Championships on Sunday in pleasant temperatures. At stake were the 2022 Norton Championships and status for next year.

After Marcus Mueller dominated the Norton Youth National Championships in Park City last weekend with singles and doubles wins in Youth A, the athlete from Brookfield, Wisconsin, moved up to junior this weekend on the same 2002 Olympic track and checked in with two more junior national titles.
Mueller, who finished second in the Junior A World Cup rankings last season, has now climbed the next rung of the ladder that will lead to eventual national and Olympic team status in the years to come.

After winning the first seeding race on Saturday and leading the Chase for the National Championship overnight, Mueller was challenged by Hunter Harris and Matt Greiner on Sunday. Harris, of East Fairfield (Vt.), finished second on day one, while Greiner, the bronze medalist at the 2022 World Junior Championships, finished third on his home track.

However, the decisive heats saw a radical change at the top with Harris winning the seeding race with two heats on Sunday, Greiner finishing second and Mueller slipping to third. In the sum of all four runs of the weekend, Mueller came to a total time of 3 minutes and 20.214 seconds. That put him 0.22 seconds ahead of Harris, while Greiner was third, 0.9 seconds behind. Harris, however, received the most seed points in the field.

Mueller again teamed with Ansel Haugsjaa of Framingham, Massachusetts, to win both seeding events in doubles and the Norton National Championship, giving Mueller four heats over the two weekends.
While all four heats are used to determine the Norton winner in singles, there are two seeding rounds in doubles, but only the final two rides decide the national champion.
Aiden Mueller of West Islip, N.Y., who is not related to Marcus Mueller, teamed with Frank Ike of Lititz, Pa. to take two second-place finishes in the seeded list and finish second at nationals by 0.46 seconds. Maya Chan of Chicago and Reannyn Weiler of Whitesboro, N.Y., were third and third again in national competition over the weekend.
Chan and Weiler were fourth at the inaugural 2022 World Championships in the women's double sculls, fourth at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games and second overall in the recently completed junior women's World Cup season.

Elana Morrison won both seeded races to become Norton U.S. Champion. The racer from Twin Lake, Michigan, won all four heats for the gold medals in the seeding races.
Morrison's four runs produced a total time of 3:00.083, which was enough to win by one second over Emma Erickson of Park City. Erickson finished second on both days. Delaney Duncan, also of Park City, won the bronze medal at the national championships, finishing third both days. Duncan was 1.4 seconds ahead of Morrison in the four heats.
The Norton Junior National Championships marked the end of the competitive season for the USA Luge. It's been a long campaign, starting with the selection races for nationals in October, World Cups from November to January to determine the Olympic team for Beijing, the Games themselves in February under strict conditions, a seven-event youth and junior World Cup season a year after COVID dropped the 2020 and 2021 schedules, and finally these youth and junior competitions in Utah to end the season.

Next up are the highly anticipated team announcements in the spring that will set the course for the 2022-2023 World Cup, Junior World Cup and Youth World Cup, as well as the World and Junior World Championships.

Results Norton Junior Championships 2022 Park City -> 

photos: USA Luge and Dietmar Reker