Unless you’re an avid watcher of the Winter Olympics, you’ve probably never heard of the luge. Widely considered to be one of the hardest sports in the olympics—with speeds reaching up to 90 mph—the exclusivity of it is understandable. With only two full-length, certified, Olympic-style luge tracks in the United States, it’s not a sport everyone has access to. It’s also not something you can just sign up for. For Ellie Kleinheinz, though, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and a wild chance that led her to where she stands today—with a gold medal in every National category of the luge she has entered. 

The luge is not like every other sport where your parents can sign you up for a local peewee team and have you train every couple of days. Because of its exclusivity, people typically get into the luge through large recruitment clinics who go around the country looking for young, potential athletes to train. Ellie describes her experience getting recruited: “My dad just saw a Facebook ad, and he said, ‘I see this in the Olympics all the time, you should go try it.”

At first Ellie hated it. Because of the lack of training facilities, the recruiters use wheeled sleds on asphalt to mimic what the luge was like. “It was not a good experience,” says Ellie. Despite the suboptimal conditions, Ellie’s natural talent for the sport was clearly impressive because she was invited to Lake Placid, New York to try using a real sled on a real training course. Ellie immediately fell in love with the sport:

Ellie trains for the luge in New York, where she goes every summer with her coach and her teammates from around the world. She does weight training on her own to stay conditioned. Ellie also plays field hockey in the fall and softball in the spring at Mitty, helping her stay in shape so she can quickly be up to pace when she returns to New York to train. Despite her busy schedule, everything comes together timing wise and as Ellie says, “There’s really no conflict.”

 Competing in luge has allowed Ellie to meet athletes from all over the world. She attended the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, Seoul earlier last year and has competed in several other international tournaments. She said, “I have a bunch of friends that are on the German team and the Polish team.” Training and competing with them for 6 months every year has been a pretty cool experience as Ellie describes. 

As Ellie continues to work on her craft, she looks to compete in the 2030 and 2034 Olympics and also be the number one American on her team. In the coming season, she hopes to place in the top 15 in at least 2 international races and continue to perform at her best.

Let’s support Ellie in her journey and hopefully see her in the Olympics one day!