Why home advantage isn’t everything for Canada’s Trinity Ellis

Whistler (FIL/27 Jan 2025) There is a reason why home for athletes is called an advantage. The familiar surroundings, the lack of travelling, the increased support from local fans.

The latter proven in a study by Education Health and Wellbeing professor Alan Nevill from the University of Wolverhampton that home advantage provides “the most dominant causes of home advantage.”

However, for Canada’s women’s singles luger Trinity Ellis, the words ‘home’ and ‘advantage’ aren’t connecting to each other as the commonly coined phrase suggests.

“I'm not super confident right now but I mean, there's a lot of time between now and then to dial that in,” said the 22 year old when asked about the upcoming World Championships in Whistler, British Columbia. “I definitely want to do well there. If I'm in the top eight I'd be stoked on that.

“I usually have really good runs, but it doesn't always translate to a good result. That's my goal leading into worlds.”

Ellis is a part of the vibrant, young, promising crop of lugers in the Canadian team with Carolyn Maxwell the only athlete on the senior team over 25.

Although their age may hint of a severe lack of experience, some of these lugers including Ellis have been on the international circuit for years, exposing themselves at the top end of the sport which other athletes at their age have not had at junior (under 21) level.

Whistler is hosting the World Championships again for the first time since 2013.

The upcoming World Championships which take place from February 6 – 8, are being hosted by Whistler for the first time since 2013 and present an opportunity for Canada to stamp their mark in international luge and possibly be the beginning of something very special.

However, despite the numerous runs 2020 Canadian champion Ellis has had on her home track, the place where she first came across the sport during a school trip, it is the course itself she is most worried about rather than the pressure of delivering in front of home fans.

“I am really confident in my sliding overall, but I've never really had great results there. The trickier parts are the bottom where it gets fast, kind of corner 12/13/15/16 is where people make the most mistakes, but it's also a track that's not very technical at all, which is something that I've had a hard time with because I feel like that's where I shine more.

“I think just dialling in the slide set up and the really small minute things in Whistler really makes all the difference.

“It’s such a short track, such a fast track, the times are so close and can make such a big difference.”

Ellis’ best time there was two seasons ago in one of the 2022/23 World Cups, finishing it in 1:17.656 coming 13th. Her best two results in the World Cup overall though were away from home, in one of her first senior competitions at Innsbruck in 2019 where she came eighth and in Yanqing in 2022 where she finished 10th, the track known for notoriously being difficult to train on for non-Chinese lugers.

The latter was also home for the 2022 Olympics and were Ellis’ debut Games at 19 years old. Impressively, she ended the singles race in 14th, thus competing as one of the top 20 athletes out of the 35 participants, completing all four available runs with her third being sub 59 seconds (58.888s).  

All of which was under extremely tight regulations during a global pandemic. Leading up to Beijing 2022, Ellis had been on the road for five months and contracted Covid a fortnight before the Games began meaning she was put under close contact isolation for the majority of the competition.

With little to none socialising, all her meals were directly sent to her hotel room, a place she was only permitted to leave for training.

“It was definitely hard,” began Ellis when asked how the intense isolation affected her. “Honestly, I was not in a super good place because of it which was hard because I was like ‘Wow, I'm at the Olympics,’ and this is my dream, I'm so excited to be here, but at the same time, I was like, “Wow, this is not what I expected it to be at all,’ which honestly, makes me hungrier for the next one.

“I want the experience,” she added.

It will hopefully be a completely different story for all athletes involved at Milano-Cortina 2026.

Surprisingly for Ellis, some of her career best times were around that mentally draining time but since the Yanqing World Cup, she has failed to get into the top 10 of any other major international competitions.

The Pemberton born admitted that her priority the past couple of seasons has been to iron out the “kinks” under new coaching at Canada that includes ex-USA head coach Robert Fegg, and a revamped sledge development programme.

She feels now though, is the time where her luge is finally “meshing” together.

Ellis will be crossing her fingers that her biggest homecoming yet in February can put her back into the mix of elite luge and remind everyone again of the bright 19 year old three years ago that took the sport by surprise.