Lake Placid (pps) Tony Benshoof ended a difficult luge season on a high note by claiming his seventh-career Norton National Championship title at the Olympic Sports Complex. He joined World Champion Erin Hamlin and the double team of Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin on the top step of the podium.
2006 Olympic fourth-place finisher Benshoof (White Bear Lake, Minn.), riding on a brand-new set of runners, clocked a two-run combined time of one minute, 45.401 seconds to take the gold. Benshoof missed several World Cup events following back surgery on December 26, 2008. Robby Huerbin (Pittsburgh, Pa.), who held the lead after the first heat of racing, took the silver in 1:45.550, edging out last year’s National Champion Bengt Walden. Walden’s bronze medal-winning time was 1:45.601.
Hamlin (Remsen, N.Y.), the reigning World Champion, clocked a total time of 1:28.568 en route to her second-consecutive National Championship title. Her first run time of 44.199 was just over two-tenths of a second slower than her track record time of 43.985, noteworthy because she set the record under substantially better track conditions. Julia Clukey (August, Maine), fifth–place finisher at this year’s World Championship, was second with a time of 1:28.977, while Megan Sweeney (Suffield, Conn.) earned her third-career Norton National Championship bronze medal in 1:29.430.
2009 World Championship bronze medalists Grimmette (Muskegon, Mich. and Lake Placid, N.Y.) and Martin (Palo Alto, Calif. and Lake Placid, N.Y.) returned to the top of the Norton National Championship podium following a one-year absence. The two-time Olympic medalists crossed the finish line in 1:28.334, just .095 seconds over silver medalists Christian Niccum (Woodinville, Wash.) and Dan Joye (Carmel, N.Y.), last year’s National Champions. Niccum and Joye, who raced to a finish time of 1:28.429, posted the fastest time of the second heat but it was not enough to overtake the race lead. 2008 Junior World Championship silver medalists Chris Mazdzer (Saranac Lake, N.Y.) and Jayson Terdiman (Berwick, Pa.) took the bronze in 1:28.837.
