Yakima teens racing to top of U.S. luge team

YAKIMA – “I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie,” says Breanna Rosencrance of Yakima, an up-and-comer on the USA Luge Junior National Developmental Team.

Always been an adrenaline junkie?

She’s 13.

That’s the same age as Caroline Goyette, also of Yakima and also among USA Luge’s 28 female athletes.

“I’m a day older, thank you,” Goyette adds, displaying the sort of friendly competitiveness these two developed during their New York state training camp visits.

That these two girls, from a small town with a desert climate and no luge track on which to train, have made it as far as they have in the obscure ice-sledding sport is notable enough. But they have a much loftier goal: the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

That’s why they’re headed to Lake Placid, N.Y., at the end of the month for training. Between now and March, they’ll spend about eight weeks there, away from their families and school routines. They’ll train on used sleds handed down from the higher-ranked luge athletes.

As luge juniors they can race down a mile-long chute of ice at speeds up to 65 mph, steering with their ankles, the threat of a high-speed crash pushed out of their minds by sheer concentration.

“It’s kind of like a roller coaster,” Rosencrance says. “Whenever the curves drop, you can feel your stomach drop. You get that feel, the constant rush of air.”

“You can make the slightest mistake and it can affect your whole run,” Goyette says.

Rosencrance won gold in USA Luge’s Youth B National Championships in Park City, Utah.

“It was a hold-your-breath kind of a moment,” said her mother, Melissa.