Dream to reality: Whim eventually lands luger in Italy

CESANA PARIOL, Italy — It was 11 years ago this June that Salt Lake City won the Olympics and the Olympics won Preston Griffall.

The date was June 16, 1995, and Preston was 11 years old when he went with his brother, Logan, and his parents, Faith and Keith, to the City-County Building grounds in downtown Salt Lake City to hear the news from Budapest whether Salt Lake City would host the 2002 Games.

When the word came that it was true, Preston and Logan whooped and hollered along with everyone else. Then, when things settled down as they were strolling the grounds, Preston's eye caught sight of a booth promoting the Olympic sliding sport of luge. His father had already taken Preston and Logan to the Winter Sports Park (as it was known then) and they had all tried the 10-meter ski jump, but the sliding track hadn't been built yet.

"I'd like to try that," Preston told his parents that night at the City and County building, and either the next day, or shortly thereafter, Faith Griffall was on the phone to the luge association, signing Preston up.

That's the same Preston, by the way, who teamed with partner Dan Joye to finish eighth Wednesday night in luge doubles in the Torino Olympics.

The pair finished nine-tenths of a second behind the winners, brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger of Austria, and half a second out of the medals — sizeable chunks in luge time.

They were done in by a couple of ragged turns on their first run that couldn't be overcome with a nearly error-free second pass down the Cesana Pariol track.

But for a team of 21-year-olds — Joye doesn't officially turn 21 until this Sunday — sliding in their first Olympics it was a portentous start. If this keeps up and they keep gaining experience and, hopefully, a few pounds, they could be in a few more of these.

In a gravity sport like luge, weight is desirable, and Griffall and Joye don't have a lot of it. Joye is 5-foot-7 and 152 pounds and Griffall is 5-foot-10 and 154 after the full enchilada plate. Together they make one offensive lineman. Although they're allowed to carry added weight to compensate, the maximum allowed is 22 pounds. Some teams outweigh them by 50 pounds or more.

But there's more to the sport than dead weight, as the top U.S. team of Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin (combined weight: 361 pounds) demonstrated Wednesday when on their first run they came crooked into turn 18 and exited with their sled on top of them. Instead of defending the silver medal they won four years ago in Salt Lake City, the gold-medal hopefuls were out of the competition entirely.