American wins luge by smallest margin in 4 years

Tucker West and his sled were too heavy last week.

This week in Lake Placid, N.Y. they were too good.

West won his second career World Cup luge gold medal Friday, edging Russia's Semen Pavlichenko by the smallest margin of victory on the circuit in nearly four years. West finished two runs on his home Mount Van Hoevenberg track in one minute, 43.088 seconds — a mere 0.006 seconds faster than Pavlichenko, who was in position to win until the very last curve of the competition.

"Luckily, I showed up today," West said.

His win was part of a big day for USA Luge. Earlier Friday, Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken of Germany won the doubles race, narrowly beating Matt Mortensen and Jayson Terdiman — the first Americans doubles sled to medal in a World Cup since 2010.

Put another way, Germany went five days without winning a World Cup doubles medal. The U.S. went six years without one.

"It's been a long journey, for sure," Terdiman said.

It was a long week for West, who was in second place at the midpoint of last weekend's season opener in Winterberg when he was disqualified for being overweight.

He more than atoned for that Friday, adding this gold to the one he won at Lake Placid in 2014.

Canadian Edney 15th

"It was disappointing last week, sitting in second and having that taken away from you by a technicality," West said. "Obviously, that's going to be disappointing. But I saw the speed was there and I was looking forward to this week, being on home ice and in front of friends and family. I was angry, I was determined to do better and I was hungry to do it."

Wolfgang Kindl of Austria was third, 0.094 seconds behind West. Chris Mazdzer of the U.S. took fourth. 

Canada's Samuel Edney placed 15th in a combined time of 1:43.963.

In the doubles race, Eggert and Benecken finished their two runs in 1:28.382. Mortensen and Terdiman took the silver in 1:28.545, and Robin Johannes Geueke and David Gamm of Germany were third in 1:28.726. The Canadian pair of Tristan Walker and Justin Smith were ninth in 1:29.043.

Eggert and Benecken are now 3-for-3 this season, having swept the doubles season-openers at Winterberg last weekend.The World Cup resumes Saturday with the women's race and team relay. USA Luge swept the podium in the women's race at Mount Van Hoevenberg last year.