Colourful luge coach set for last Olympics with Canada: ‘Everything comes to an end’

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This article was published 27/01/2022 (1345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sam Edney remembers the first time he exchanged words with his future coach.

It was the fall of 2006 and Wolfgang Staudinger was in talks to lead Canada’s luge program with the country set to host the Olympics in a little over three years.

Edney was in the zone, preparing for a run on the Cesana Pariol track that staged sliding events at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy, eight months earlier.

“Wolf was at the start,” he recalled. “And he said something like, ‘Edney are you gonna pull a fast one here?’

“Then all of a sudden I was feeling extra motivated … and I totally blew up in front of him. Awful start.”

With the experience of having just raced the same course at his first Olympics, the 22-year-old Canadian gathered himself and responded with a solid effort his next time down.

“Years later Wolf told me that was a very memorable moment for him,” Edney continued. “Because there was this athlete who’s got the potential, but a little bit of egging on and he loses it.

“Then totally redeems himself.”

Staudinger, who took Canada from luging backwater to a force on the international scene, will move on from the program following the Beijing Olympics with mixed feelings.

Proud of what his lugers accomplished during a roller-coaster 15 years. And disappointed his time wearing the Maple Leaf — one that saw a small sliding nation challenge the sport’s powerhouse — is drawing to a close.

There were agonizing moments on the biggest stage, like Canada’s trio of fourth-place results at the 2014 Sochi Games. There were also breathless finishes, culminating in a long-sought Olympic breakthrough with the team’s first two medals four years later in Pyeongchang.

“I look at this with a happy eye and a sad eye,” Staudinger said in a recent phone interview. “The emotions are going both ways, but it is as it is.

“Everything comes to an end.”

The colourful German, however, certainly had no idea where this path would lead when he took the reins ahead of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C.

Canada had won just three World Cup luge medals — including one secured by Staudinger’s wife, Marie-Claude Doyon — between 1987 and 2005.

“I compare it with the South Korean hockey team,” said the 59-year-old, who won doubles bronze for West Germany at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. “They love hockey, but they don’t have any chance to succeed at the world championships or Olympics. The South Korean hockey team winning medals … that’s what you can compare where we came from.

“And that’s basically what we’ve done.”

Having coached with the German program after hanging up his own sled, Staudinger first went to work on figuring out what was in the Canadian stable.

Unlike his homeland, where sliding sports are massively popular, the country has a small pool of athletes. Staudinger determined the skill was there, but the volume of racing needed to iron out a long list of correctable mistakes was not.

“What really was missing was consistency,” he said. “From year to year it got better, and the athletes suddenly were like, ‘Holy s*** doing all that matters.'”

Canada failed to medal at the 2010 Olympics, but things were starting to change as athletes gained confidence, habits improved and equipment was standardized.

Calgary’s Alex Gough became the country’s first consistent podium threat before snapping Germany’s 13-year, 105-race World Cup win streak in women’s singles in February 2011 with Canada’s first-ever luge gold.

“I don’t think I would have had any of the successes had Wolfgang not come on board,” said Gough, who retired after her fourth Olympics in 2018. “He changed the way we trained to be stronger, more resilient. And then just helping break down those barriers of getting past the German dominance.

“That was the start of building us into a program that has expectations of challenging for medals.”

Edney, who also retired after the Games in South Korea, said Staudinger brought much-needed swagger.

“One of his favourite things to say was, ‘The Germans cook with water as well,'” Edney recalled. “They’re doing the exact same stuff we’re doing.

“If we believe in that and believe in what we’re doing, it’s gonna work out if we work hard. That’s what he demanded.”

But all the blood and sweat took a long time to bear Olympic fruit.

Gough and the doubles team of Tristan Walker and Justin Snith just missed the podium in Sochi before also finishing fourth with Edney in the relay.

“That sucked, but it’s a reality in sports,” Staudinger said. “It was a good learning process.”

It just might not have felt that way at the time. Staudinger admits looking back even he had doubts the team would ever get over the hump.

“I had my moments,” he said. “I would like to tell you I always believed.

“It’s like anything else in life.”

Gough would make a total of six world championship podiums — including four with the relay team — to go along with 27 World Cup medals. Edney became the first Canadian male to win a World Cup race, and just the second to reach a podium, while Walker and Snith had also left their mark on the international circuit ahead of 2018.

Those elusive Olympic accolades, however, hung over the group and were the primary focus.

And it looked like there would be more crushing disappointment in Pyeongchang until Gough squeaked out a singles bronze in dramatic fashion.

“An unbelievable relief of pressure,” Staudinger said. “I was on edge hard.”

Gough, who got her civil engineering degree after retiring and also now serves as the president of Luge Canada’s board of directors, said faith in their plan was finally rewarded.

“We pulled through,” said the 34-year-old. “Everyone supported everyone.”

Edney, 37, said the entire program could exhale when Gough’s name flashed on the scoreboard in the No. 3 spot.

“Validated all the work,” said the Calgary product and Luge Canada’s current high-performance manager.

“The one thing everyone judges you on is the Olympics.”

With that weight finally lifted, the group followed with a silver in the relay to put an accent on Canada’s Olympic luging leap.

“Wolf is certainly a coach that would challenge you,” Gough said. “But he also knew when it was time to take a step back, ease off a little bit and go have a beer.”

Staudinger is bringing a young, six-member team to China led by Walker and Snith, who will compete at their fourth Games.

“Let’s see what they can do when they get their act together,” the coach said bluntly of his doubles entry. “The potential is there.”

As he prepares to head off into the sunset, the Staudinger of 15 years ago probably wouldn’t recognize the program he’s helped reshape.

“It’ll be a challenge going forward, but we have those tools,” Gough said. “Those athletes know what’s possible.

“He’s given us that belief and knowledge.”

Staudinger, who has no plans to retire, believes Canadian luge is in a good place, but worries about the future of all sliding sports if Calgary’s shuttered Olympic track — it’s been dormant nearly three years — doesn’t reopen, leaving the country with only the Whistler facility.

“We are now out of the painful stages,” he said. “Whoever takes over these athletes now has the task to move them step-by-step closer to the podium.”

While the Olympic glory will always top his list of coaching achievements, Staudinger said the athletes’ drive to find a consistency that made it all possible was equally fulfilling on a personal level.

“This was no fluke,” he said. “I only gave them the tools and showed them the path. Having done this as a team was really cool.

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“I’m very proud of that.”

Staudinger will now watch the next generation attempt to build on that foundation from afar.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2022.

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