Chris Mazdzer of the United States shook up the luge world order听Sunday听night, becoming the first non-European to podium in the Olympic men鈥檚 singles event.
鈥淭his is validation for everything I鈥檝e done,鈥� said Mazdzer, who won silver. 鈥淎ll the sacrifices, it鈥檚 worth it.鈥�
It took 16 years听of training, and came down to a fraction of a second. Had he been just .207 seconds slower, he would have missed out on the medals entirely.
In sports events that are won by such wafer-thin margins, it鈥檚 not only the athletes who are crucial; equipment plays a critical role too.
Laboring behind the scenes are hundreds of mechanics and technicians preparing skis, snowboards, and sleds. Think pit crew 鈥撎齱ith a shoestring budget and a track that changes by the day if not the hour.
Their ingenuity, innovation, and precision are every bit as Olympic as the athletes鈥� performances, and their schedules are sometimes even more grueling.
鈥淲e work half a day,鈥� jokes Richard Laubenstein, a former race car mechanic who now tends to听America鈥檚 bobsleds 鈥撎齩ften in damp, unheated parking garages. And by half a day, he means 12 hours.听
These geek squads 鈥� which sometimes include the athletes themselves 鈥撎齛re intimately familiar with the difference between a sharp snow crystal that squeaks underfoot and the rounded shape of snow that has thawed and refrozen.听They notice whether the ice on the bobsled track is crystal-clear 鈥� the sign of hard, fast ice 鈥� or the milky kind that is liable to get chips and bumps as the race wears on.
They use space pens and waterproof notebooks to record testing results in all sorts of weather so that when they know the precise conditions on race day, they have a log of what works best.
鈥淲ax technicians need to be meteorologists,鈥� says Alex Deibold, who served as a wax tech at the 2010 Olympics and won bronze in snowboard cross as a competitor at the 2014 Sochi Games. 鈥淵ou have to look at the weather and be like, it says it鈥檚 going to snow 鈥� but it鈥檚 said that for the past four days. Maybe I鈥檒l prep one extra board, just in case it does.鈥�
From pine pitch to fluorocarbons
At the 2015 snowboard cross test event in Pyeongchang, there was no snow in the forecast. But Deibold鈥檚 wax tech Andy Buckley woke up in the middle of the night听and noticed it was snowing outside. So rather than going back to bed, he went down to the wax room at听3:30 a.m.听and spent nearly three听hours rewaxing Deibold鈥檚 snowboards, as well as those of his teammates, Nick Baumgartner and Nate Holland.
Holland won gold, Baumgartner bronze, and Deibold was fifth. 鈥淚 think you can attribute that to the fact that our wax tech took a little bit of extra time and rewaxed our snowboards,鈥� says Deibold.
Gone are the days of smearing听sperm whale oil and pine pitch on skis; today鈥檚 techs select from a wide array of chemical compounds 鈥� some as costly per ounce as caviar. Taking into consideration the temperature, humidity, and the relative freshness of the snow, the techs concoct the mixture that will enable the bases to glide across the snow with as little friction as possible.听听
Skis and boards are also put through stone-grinding machines that imprint textures designed for warm or cold snow, and wet or dry snow. Cross-country skiers can travel with 20 or more pairs of skis, each suited to a specific set of conditions. Diebold brings five snowboards with different grinds to his competitions.
Sliding sports don鈥檛 have that luxury; they generally have one race sled, but there鈥檚 still plenty of prep involved.
First, there鈥檚 the off-season work: designing sleds, building them and testing their aerodynamics in wind tunnels. Then there鈥檚 finding the right balance between speed and control for any given track and the ice conditions that day.
On luge sleds, for example, you can gain more control by tilting the runners, known as 鈥渟teels,鈥� more sharply into the ice, or by changing their relative angles. But such techniques sacrifice speed. And speed is of the essence when 0.007 seconds is the difference between a silver medal and nothing.
Sliders can squeeze a few more thousandths of a second off their time by polishing their steels. They start with low-grit sandpaper wrapped around a file and work up to 2500-grit sandpaper, finishing off with diamond paste until they can see their reflection.
鈥淲hen we鈥檙e done鈥 would be comfortable shaving off of it,鈥� says Tucker West, who finished 26th 听in听Sunday鈥檚听race.听
'You're riding on your pinky'
Where exactly does one get a bobsled or a skeleton sled? After all, it鈥檚 not as if they鈥檙e lined up next to the Flexible Flyers at ACE Hardware. American teams have set about making their own.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e going to be competing at the top level you don鈥檛 want the standard thing that everyone can buy,鈥� says skeleton racer Matt Antoine, who has been a driving force in a new sled-building program that began in 2009.听鈥淵ou can be the best pusher, the best slider, but if you鈥檙e bringing crappy equipment to the race it doesn鈥檛 matter.鈥�
It has cost more than $2 million for USA Bobsled to design, prototype, and build new four-man bobsleds. One of them will be in competition for the first time in Pyeongchang, and it hasn鈥檛 even had the opportunity to go through the usual 鈥渁ero-tuning鈥� tests.
But the team has learned a lot from testing other sleds听in a wind tunnel in Mooresville, N.C., when the sled is suspended slightly off the ground to have its drag coefficient measured. While they are about it, the team tests its helmets, suits, and different athlete positions for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
Then in training runs, the athletes, coaches,听 and team bobsled mechanic Laubenstein experiment with different runners 鈥撎齱ider ones for more control, narrower ones for more speed. The runners, which cost $6,000 to $12,000 a pair, are not like ice skates but perfectly rounded and smooth 鈥撎齛nd about the width of a finger.
鈥淚 always tell people 鈥� that鈥檚 what you鈥檙e riding on: your pinky,鈥� says Laubenstein.听Before a race, he uses razor-thin shims to align the runners to .005 of an inch accuracy, or about the width of aluminum foil.
鈥凌颈肠丑补谤诲听is fantastic,鈥� says Steve Langton, a member of the bobsled team. 鈥淗aving someone doing stuff that we don鈥檛 have to do (gives us) time that we can sleep or recover.鈥�
Laubenstein鈥檚 wife has an important role to play too; she has taken the team under her wing, baking them treats.
鈥淎fter the race, we鈥檙e like, just take us back to the garage,鈥� says driver Justin Olsen. 鈥淥nce we鈥檙e in the garage, we鈥檙e like, where are the sweets?鈥�
By the time they鈥檙e done, the baking pan is bent.
Just one more thing for the mechanic to repair.
Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct Mazdzer's margin of victory in the luge competition.听
