Brian Martin is a member of the United States National Luge Team. He is USA Luge’s all-time leader in international medals won.
Tell us about your background.
I am from Palo Alto, California. I got started in Luge through the Verizon USA Luge Slider Search. It’s a program that is run during the summer. People travel around the country and introduce kids to the sport, teach them how to drive and stop the sled, and send them down on a road. The kids learn about the sport before they get on the sled. They see what the real equipment looks like and get on the same sleds that the professionals use during the winter, except for the fact that they have wheels on them. They probably get going 20 to 25 miles per hour down the hill. They can really feel how the sled steers and reacts to their action. It’s quite a thrill for a first timer.
I went out and tried that, had a lot of fun, and then was invited to come back and try it on the ice. I have been doing it since 1988. My first time on ice I flew to Calgary and slid there. Later that same winter, I came to Lake Placid and slid on the track here.
What was it about you that got you selected to do Luge?
I now participate in the program in the summertime looking for athletes. When we look for kids we look for athletic kids that take to the sport naturally and have a good feel for the sled almost by intuition. A lot of times you can look at kids and just the way they step up to the sled and sit on it for the first time, you can tell whether or not they will understand the principle of steering and do well. I think that’s what was recognized in me. I took control of the sled and wasn’t afraid of the speed. I learned quickly how the sled works and how to pull it. It’s a lot to learn from there; it is certainly not a natural thing to learn how to do. You definitely have to have a natural fearlessness.
What were some of your career highlights?
I am a two-time Olympic medallist. In 1998 my teammate Mark Grimmette and I won the bronze medal. In 2002 we won the silver medal. I am also a three-time World Cup champion, which is winning the point races of all the individual world cups. It’s a season long competition. I have also won several medals and world championships. It was all in doubles only, not singles.
How did you become so good at Luge?
The things that have gotten me to where I am are determination, hard work, and sticking to it. There is a lot of work that goes into it and a lot of physical training throughout the year. During the summer it’s not that glamorous because you’re in the weight room doing a lot of dry land training and you’re not actually sliding. That can get tiresome because you feel like you are doing a lot of work, and you ask what you are really doing it for. But when the winter comes it’s great. You can get on the track and get down the hill fast and that makes life a lot more fun. I have to have that work ethic and think about how can I make myself better, how can I go faster, what do I need to do to train to make my start better. I have to be really determined to find all those advantages in the sport. It’s really what makes an athlete better than the rest of the field.
What details and techniques lead to a win?
One of the things that are very important in Luge is to be very relaxed on the sled. The track isn’t perfectly smooth. If you are very relaxed you can absorb a lot of the bumps, which keeps the sled on the ice. That does two things for you: you are going faster and you have more control. If you are really relaxed and you do make a mistake and hit a wall, you can absorb that bump or impact of hitting the wall and it doesn’t slow the sled. The sled just kind of bounces off the wall just slig | 
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