Summer Britcher smiles after her second run of the women's singles competition at the FIL Luge World Cup on Nov. 23, 2019 in Innsbruck, Austria.
Lillehammer, Norway, has always been good to Summer Britcher. It was there that the two-time Olympian scored her fifth individual career victory in luge in 2018, making her the all-time singles win leader in USA Luge history.
The city continues to bring good things for Britcher: on Saturday, the 25-year-old scored her third silver medal of the season in women’s luge Saturday at the FIL World Cup there.
Ranked fourth after the first of two runs for her time of 47.827 seconds, Britcher shaved more than a tenth of a second off her time in her second run for 47.772 and a total of 1 minute, 35.599 seconds after hitting a speed of 119.97 km/hour, the fastest slide recorded on the second run.
That was good enough for second place behind 2014 Olympic team silver medalist Tatyana Ivanova of Russia, whose combined time was 1:35.482. Germany’s Julia Taubitz, the reigning world silver medalist, led after a speedy first run but dropped to third after a fourth-place effort on her second, with an overall time of 1:35.624.
Britcher, a 25-year-old from Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, has enjoyed the best start to the season of her career. She was the silver medalist at the World Cup season opener in Igls, Austria, in November, the first time in seven years that she took a medal in a season-opening race. She followed up with a second silver in sprint at the world cup in Lake Placid, New York.
Saturday’s success in Norway moves Britcher from sixth to fourth in the season standings, trailing Ivanova, Taubitz and Russia’s Viktoria Demchenko. 2018 Olympian Emily Sweeney is currently ranked sixth.
Blythe Lawrence is a journalist based in Seattle. She has covered two Olympic Games and is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
