Emily Sweeney

Emily Sweeney

nation

United States

birthday

16th March 1993 (age 27)

place of birth

Portland

size

165 cm

job

Military policewoman

Career

society

Army National Guard

status

active

Medal table

World championships	0 ×	0 ×	1 ×
Junior World Championships	1 ×	0 ×	1 ×
America Pacific Championships	2 ×	2 ×	0 ×

Luge World Championships
bronze	2019 Winterberg	singles
Junior Luge World Championships
gold	2013 Park City	singles
bronze	2013 Park City	Team relay
America Pacific Championships
silver	2014 Lake Placid	singles
silver	2016 Park City	singles
gold	2018 Lake Placid	singles
gold	2019 Whistler	singles

Placements in the Luge World Cup

Debut in the World Cup	December 6, 2009
World Cup victories	1
Overall World Cup ES	6. ( 2016/17 )

Podium placements	1.	2.	3.
Single seater	0	3	1
Sprint single seater	1	2	1
Team relay	0	1	0

last change: end of 2019

Emily Sweeney (born March 16, 1993 in Portland ) is an American luge athlete .

life and career

Emily Sweeney lives in Suffield . She is the sister of former luge skier Megan Sweeney and has been sledding herself since she was ten years old. She has been a member of the US national squad since 2009. Sweeney is a member of the Army National Guard Military Police and part of the World Class Athlete Program . She is in a relationship with the Italian toboggan runner Dominik Fischnaller .

Sweeney made her international luge debut at the 2009 Junior Luge World Championships in Nagano , where she finished seventh in a four-fold German victory. A year later she was fifth in Igls and eighth in 2011 in Oberhof with another four-fold German victory. Until then, she was always in the shadow of her compatriot Kate Hansen . It wasn't until 2012 that she left Hansen behind for the first time in Königssee and came in sixth. So she qualified for the team race, where she was fifth on the side of Tucker West , Tyler Andersen and Anthony Espinoza . In her last participation in the Junior Luge World Championships in Park City in 2013 , she won the title ahead of the Germans Carolin von Schleinitz and Nathalie Burkhardt . With the team she also won the bronze medal alongside Andersen, Espinoza and West.

Sweeney competed in the first international women's races in Altenberg and Lillehammer and immediately reached the main races and placed 13th and 16. With 65 points, she was 35th of 61 starters in only two races of the season in the 2009/10 season . She narrowly missed qualifying for the 2010 Winter Olympics against her sister. The following season was a little weaker . In two races, at the beginning in Igls and in Oberhof, she reached the main race, but only with 22nd and 24th place in the back. She did not reach the goal at Königssee. In the overall standings she came in 32nd place with 36 points. In 2011/12 she already competed in four of the nine races of the season and just missed the top ten with positions eleven to 13 in three races and ended up being 26th with 96 points Overall rating. In 2012/13 , the number of World Cup races increased to six of the nine races of the season. In Altenberg she came in tenth place for the first time in the top ten, in Lake Placid she reached a single-digit position for the first time in ninth place. The highlight of the season was the first participation in the Luge World Championships . In 2013 , Sweeney finished 22nd in Whistler Sliding Center and thus narrowly missed the final round of the best 20. At the U-23 World Championships, which were also run as a race-in-race , she was eleventh. After the setback of the non-qualification for the 2013/14 World Cup season and thus again the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and due to fitness problems due to her military training and the aftermath of an injury to her knee on the Sochi railway, she initially fell into a mental hole and retired from sports for some time. Then she took on her sport with renewed vigor.

Sweeney during training for the 2015 World Cup race in Altenberg

Emily Sweeney has been among the world's best in her sport since the 2014/15 season . It started in eleven of the twelve World Cup races, including all three of the sprint races held for the first time. It achieved single-digit placements six times. In Koenigssee she just missed the first podium in fourth place, in Lake Placid in fifth. In the end, she was ninth overall with 371 points. With the US season she also achieved silver in Königssee alongside Christopher Mazdzer , Matt Mortensen and Jayson Terdiman . She finished the 2015 Luge World Championships at Königssee as 14th. In 2015/16 , she competed in all races of the season and achieved nine single-digit placements. In Lake Placid she sled behind Erin Hamlin and in front of Summer Britcher in the first US triple victory in luge World Cup history with second place, her first place on the podium in a World Cup individual race. She finished the 2016 Luge World Championships in Sigulda in 22nd place. The 2016/17 season again brought an improvement in performance. In eight of the 12 races of the season she achieved single-digit results. In Park City, she came second in both the main and sprint races behind Hamlin. In the overall ranking she reached sixth place with 564 experienced points. At the World Championships in Igls, Sweeney was 15th, in the sprint race, finishing fourth, missed winning her first international championship medal by just under five thousandths of a second over Tatjana Hüfner .

Award ceremony for the first World Cup victory in the sprint race in Winterberg 2017, from left: Summer Britcher, Emily Sweeney and Natalie Geisenberger .

The 2017/18 season was mixed. Over the season, a setback in Sweeney's performance was observed, several times she missed the top 20 ranks or the qualification for the sprint races of the 15 best of the World Cup races. In Winterberg , she was able to win her first race in the World Cup with the sprint race. Before that, she had to qualify for the World Cup race for the first time in a long time in Winterberg and managed to do so with a sovereign victory in the Nations Cup race. In the end she was eleventh overall with 400 points. The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , for which Sweeney was able to qualify for the first time in the third attempt, should be the highlight of his career so far . At the competition in the Olympic Sliding Center she achieved a good time in the first run and was eleventh, but then she missed the second run as 23. Also in the third run she only achieved a mediocre time and was 16. Trying to get the games too sporty To bring a conciliatory conclusion, Sweeney fell in the infamous during the games turn nine, on which several other tobogganers had previously fallen. After sliding several hundred meters through the track, she had to receive medical care for several minutes and was then taken to a hospital, from which she was released a little later, as no serious injuries were initially found. This initial diagnosis had to be revised a few days later. Sweeney was found to have fractures in the neck and spine. It was nine months before she could return to the World Cup. At the second World Cup station in Whistler, she immediately achieved third place. She won a bronze medal in singles at the 2019 World Championships in Winterberg.

At the Luge America-Pacific Championships Sweeney won the silver medal behind her compatriot Erin Hamlin in Lake Placid in 2014 and in Park City in 2016 . She eventually won gold medals at Lake Placid in 2018 and Whistler in 2019 .