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Cougar coeds sliding toward Olympic fast lane
BYU students hope to garner elusive medal for America
By Brady Snyder
Deseret News staff writer
Call BYU athletic director Val Hale and tell him the Cougars are starting a new sport, and it'll even satisfy Title IX.
The sport: women's luge.
The athletes: three part-time students named Courtney Zablocki, Becky Wilczak and Brenna Margol.
The trio — along with Ashley Hayden — are America's fastest female sliders and might be USA Luge's best medal shots for Salt Lake's 2002 Winter Games.
One of them, however, found out this month that she won't be competing in Salt Lake.
As students they aren't seen around BYU's campus much. Zablocki, Wilczak and Margol do most of their work through correspondence courses — a little sociology 101 here, some psychology 101 there. Just enough to keep the brain sharp.
Correspondence work allows vagabonds, like luge athletes, to have some education while roaming around pursuing other endeavors.
Zablocki, from Highlands Ranch, Colo., coaxed Wilczak and Margol into taking courses from the Y.
"It's close (eight hours from Highlands Ranch by car). I can just drive out to Provo to take a test. It's just convenient," she said.
While Colorado is near, mostly during the five-month-long luge season and during many more months of training, Zablocki and her pals are busy pursuing sport far away from home.
They schlep luge sleds for Uncle Sam throughout Europe, Canada and Japan competing on the World Cup luge circuit.
They share rooms at hotels across the world, and during the off-season they train together, bonding like most college students.
The threesome, along with Hayden, look like something that might make up a university dorm room.
They are all young. Wilczak, at 21 years and 4 months, is the oldest. Hayden, at 20 years and 1 month, is the baby.
The foursome even slides alike.
After last year's eight-race World Cup luge season they were logjammed with Zablocki ninth, Wilczak 10th, Hayden 11th and Margol 12th in the rankings.
This season, however, hasn't been as much of a party.
The group has slid knowing that one of them wouldn't make the Olympic team since countries are allotted only three competitors during the Games.
"Between the four of us I couldn't have told you who wouldn't have been chosen (for the Olympics) because we're all so close," Wilczak said.
Adds Hayden:
"It was really difficult during the first half of the season knowing that all of us are very close and that it could be anyone of us that doesn't go to the Olympics."
A week ago the group learned the bad news — Margol wouldn't be sliding in Salt Lake.
That decision came despite that fact that Margol won the North American Championships earlier this season at Utah Olympic Park. She was cut from the Olympic team after failing to place in the top five of any World Cup race this season — something her three teammates all did.
Leaving her on the sidelines has been more bothersome than any mid-term exam.
"It's been hard because we've been training together for six years and a piece of that is missing," Hayden said.
Even the joy of making the Olympic team was somewhat lost.
Zablocki noted that being named to the team was not "as exciting as I thought it was going to be" since in accepting congratulations she knew Margol couldn't compete.
The three Olympians consoled Margol after the season's fifth World Cup race in Oberhof, Germany — Margol's last shot to post a top five.
"That was the most difficult part," Zablocki said. "We all gave her hugs after the race."
The American women, sans Margol, will defend home ice at Utah Olympic Park during the Games. They will be endeavoring to become the first U.S. female sliders to ever claim an Olympic medal in luge, which is dominated by Germans and Austrians.
Recent history, however, shows that the three might be up to the task.
Zablocki, Hayden and Wilczak all finished in the top eight the last time a World Cup was held at Utah Olympic Park. Wilczak was fourth that day, just off the podium.
Margol will make the trip to Salt Lake to root on the other three. Maybe she'll even make the trek to Provo to see if Hale has that Cougar luge team up and running yet.
E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com
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December 29, 2001
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