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Olympic hopeful Matt Mortensen: first alternate
Huntington graduate missed team by fractions of a second
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February 02, 2010 | 12:46 PM
Most compete in athletic shadows. And then, every four years, the world turns a spotlight bright enough to melt the snow and ice under them.
This year, Long Island is sending two of its homegrown talent to the Olympics — skeleton racer John Daly and hockey player Mike Komisarek (no, Komisarek doesn't live in the shadows — he's an NHL player — but his father's defection is a classic American success story). Skeleton racer Annie O'Shea and luger Matt Mortensen didn't realize their Olympic dreams this year, but have already reset their sights on 2014.
All four share a desire to represent their families, friends and communities. Times Beacon Record is proud to offer their stories over the next few weeks in an Olympic Spotlight series as these athletes seek to emerge from the shadows.
Matt Mortensen
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| | | | Matt Mortensen. Courtesy photo (click for larger version) | | |
Matt Mortensen has been away from his family on his birthday every year since he was 12. The promising luger spent half of every year — the half that includes his birthday — traveling around the world with the American team, pushing himself to be stronger and faster.
As of last month, Mortensen, 24, and his luge partner Preston Griffall were competing against one other United States team to achieve the long-awaited payoff: the Olympics. The final head-to-head competition didn't go as well as they had hoped and Mortensen of Huntington Station and Griffall of Salt Lake City are now the first alternates for the U.S. Team.
"It's a huge disappointment," Mortensen said. "It really came down to the wire. It was a race-off over three runs. It just didn't happen to be a track where we were the fastest ones."
In a sport where a thousandth of a second can determine the difference between first and second place, Mortensen now has to wait another four years for another Olympic opportunity. He said it took a few weeks to get over the disappointment, but has used this setback as motivation to make the 2014 team.
"It's a four-year commitment," Mortensen said. "We want to dedicate ourselves to making sure we go in 2014."
Like many other potential winter Olympic athletes, Mortensen had played several other more typical Long Island sports, including basketball, baseball and soccer, before turning to the luge.
Jerry Mortensen, Matt's father, worked for Verizon which, at the time, was the sole sponsor of the US luge team. Through the Verizon Slider Search, the luge team held tryouts at Old Westbury College.
"I was looking for something to do on a Saturday," Mortensen said. "My father asked if I wanted to go and try it out."
A self-described "fearless little kid," little did the 10-year old Mortensen know how that Saturday would shape his life.
Jerry Mortensen, who graduated from Huntington High School and played basketball and baseball growing up, said he knew very little about the luge when they arrived at the tryouts.
"These guys on the team show you how to steer the sled. They tell you to swerve in and out of the cones. Quite a few kids found their way into the woods," Jerry laughed.
Matt didn't make the team right away. It wasn't until he was closer to 12 that he made the junior national team. Ever since then, he's been traveling from October through March, lugging his sled, passport and schoolbooks around the world.
"You grow up a lot quicker than everyone else," Mortensen said. "We would have a tutor that would travel with us. We would do school work two hours a day for five or six days a week. St. Dominic's in Oyster Bay would send the work with us."
Mortensen's mom, Mary, said it wasn't easy approving of the unusual schedule. "I don't think any parent is prepared for anything like this," she said. "It's hard to see your child go overseas and not go with him. When Matthew first went, I got a passport, too, just in case, God forbid, something happened and I had to bring him home."
Matt's mom was greatly reassured when she heard that the luge team was very strict with its members. "They don't take any shenanigans," she said. "They make them step up to the plate."
Matt said growing up in a "strict" family helped keep him from making bad decisions when he was so far away from his Long Island home.
Matt has four brothers and two sisters. All the Mortensen men, at one time or another, tried the luge. Matt's younger brother Joe competes in the singles luge.
Living half his life away from home made adjusting to school life difficult. When he came back to the classroom, Mortensen said he felt like "life came to a standstill. You feel like you should be doing something [more] and you're not. When you're competing, you're moving and traveling every week. You train Monday through Friday, you race Saturday and Sunday and you travel again on Monday."
While the pace of classroom learning is considerably different from sliding down an ice track at over 80 miles per hour, Mortensen said time away from the sport allowed his body to recover from the stresses and strains of competition.
"You have to take a break," Mortensen said. "I take a good month off and let my body completely recover."
One of the more common injuries for luge athletes is in the lower back. From the time athletes are in their mid 20s through the 30s, they can sometimes have back surgeries and disc problems.
Mortensen supports himself during the off season by doing carpentry, painting and tiling for a contractor and working at the Huntington YMCA, where his mother works.
Despite not making the Olympic team this year, Mortensen said he relies on a resolve he got from his parents, whom he describes as "determined people." He also appreciates how being around other Olympic hopefuls pushes him to train harder.
"Seeing how hard everyone else is working makes you want to work harder," Mortensen said. "Everyone is so super-competitive. You can't have a morning run without it becoming a race. Everyone wants to be better than everyone else. When you lose, that's telling you that you want to work harder."
When his luge racing days eventually end, Mortensen said he wants to go into physical therapy or become a trainer. "After being in a weight room environment and being around trainers, I have a lot of the knowledge it takes," he said.
Well before he's ready to hang up his sled, though, Mortensen feels like he's got some unfinished Olympic business to tackle-hopefully in 2014 in Russia.
"This year was a good fight and a good first half of the season, but sometimes everything you have just isn't enough," he said. "That just makes you try harder so the next time when you give it your all, it will be enough."
Mortensen's parents, who hope to travel to the Olympics if Matt is on the team, have already reset their sights on Russia. "I would rather go to Russia anyway," his mom declared. "It's just interesting."
"We can go to Vancouver any time," his dad said. "Russia is different."
Next week: Ice hockey Olympian Mike Komisarek heads to Vancouver.
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