Lake Placid (pps) Kate Hansen, Chris Mazdzer and Jake Hyrns-Andrew Sherk won the podium’s top spots at the U.S. National Luge Championship. On the artificially refrigerated track in Lake Placid Kate Hansen, 2008 World junior champion, defeated defending champion Julia Clukey as well as Erin Hamlin, 2009 World Champion, to second and third place in the women’s singles respectively. In the men’s singles Chris Mazdzer took the national title ahead of Tucker West and Taylor Morris. The team of Hyrns-Sherk slid to their championship title in the doubles’, ahead of Matt Mortensen-Preston Griffall and Christian Niccum-Jayson Terdiman on second and third place, respectively. The U.S. National Luge Championships were the first of two seeding races for the U.S. luge team for the Viessmann Luge World Cup that will take off in Lillehammer (Norway) in the middle of November. The second seeding race is scheduled for October 20 – in Park City in the U.S. state of Utah.