For most of us (okay, the entire southern hemisphere notwithstanding) winter sport is firmly in recess for the summer. And while there are plenty of competitions to be found on the mountain ranges across the equator, the winter season seems to take its pulse from Europe, North America and, from an Olympic perspective of late, East Asia. The fact is that for the majority of winter athletes it’s the off season.

But while competition pauses, the pursuit of perfection endures.

For Chris Mazdzer, the first non-European to medal at an Olympics in men’s luge singles, the summer months offer no let-up in his endeavours to shave a few fractions of a second – 26 thousandths would be nice, as we’ll discover – from his run time.

Pyeongchang was Chris Mazdzer’s third winter Olympics and, having finished 13th in the previous two at Sochi and Vancouver, patently his finest.

Sometimes athletes make it look easy. As if the successful conclusion of their race was a foregone conclusion. As they mount the podium, dipping their heads for the medal, swirling around in the cloud of emotions is an air of inevitability. 

But while it might seem as though success permeates the Olympic medallist’s every twist and turn, the end result is never so preordained as it occasionally appears. For Chris Mazdzer, it looked like silver at Pyeongchang was the summit of his mountain, the inexorable pinnacle of almost two decades’ competing. In fact it’s easy to visualise Chris’s sliding career as something like a pyramid, zeroing in on that moment at the Alpensia Sliding Center on February 11th 2018.

Pointy shapes, though, aren’t appropriate as a metaphor for Chris Mazdzer’s career.

“I would love to call my career a pyramid, continuing on the up and up, but I mean the last two years have been pretty difficult. I haven’t medalled in two years in a world cup. There were a couple of fourth places but my best world cup this year was sixth going into the Olympics. So I think the Olympics for me was a huge redemption.”

An Olympic medal of any colour had twice before dangled beyond Chris Mazdzer’s grasp – and to be fair, well beyond it. As a generalisation though, the Olympic format is one that represents his most auspicious shot at a podium finish. That’s because Chris is a man who excels in a contest of attrition.

“The conditions were really difficult,” Chris reflects. “The weather was below zero Fahrenheit, there was the windchill. And also in the US no singles man had ever medalled. So I know it’s been generations of luge athletes pushing for this. The Olympics is different in luge – typically it’s a two run race but at the Olympics it’s four runs. So after the first two I was actually in fourth place by only three thousandths of a second. If it was a normal World Cup race I would have been really upset to be off the podium by that much! But given the opportunity – I’m a consistent slider, I have experience – four runs for me really helped out just because some of the other guys messed up on the second day.”

Success at Pyeongchang has transformed Chris Mazdzer into something of a national hero. Google him and you’ll find countless images of the photogenic slider bedecked in stars and stripes or else with dance partner Witney Carson, alongside whom Chris competed in the national series Dancing with the Stars. In fact following Pyeongchang Chris Mazdzer has become exactly that – a star.

Never mind all the proceeding clamour though. It was nothing compared to the sensation that started it all: winning Olympic silver.

“To walk away with the silver medal,” Chris says, “it was really emotional for me. Like I had this idea as a kid growing up, my goal was to obviously win an Olympic medal. And you kind of envision what that would be like but the truth is, when it actually happened it was way more emotional because of all of the years of struggle and sacrifice that my family made, my friends made, my coaches, my competitors, my team mates made. It was way more powerful and profound than I ever thought it was going to be. It just felt really good to give back with a tangible item. Like, the coach who was the first one to tackle me and give me this huge hug – like, bang – we were team mates for many years and so he missed the spot on the podium. Having old team mates support me like that, it’s absolutely incredible that we finally did this so yeah, it was way more emotional than I ever thought it was going to be.”

The commitment from Chris’s coaching team is not lost on him.

“They gave everything in their careers, and then went on to coaching. I mean, they’re still giving me a hundred percent and that’s what makes it absolutely incredible.”