La Canada Alumni To Represent USA On Sochi Luge Track
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — An alumni of La Cañada High School will represent the USA at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.
21-year-old Kate Hansen, despite a broken foot, got the nod for the Olympic luge team after qualifying in Park City, Utah.
Hansen, who won the ñe World Cup in Latvia over the weekend, narrowly missed making the Olympic team in 2010, over the margin of just milliseconds.
Showing perseverance, she continued to work, graduating from La Cañada High School and moving on to BYU in Utah, where she advanced her training.
"That moment when she came across the finish line, she saw she was fourth, it all just hit her that she had finally made the team," Kate's mother Kathie said.
According to Kathie, Kate's need for speed is nothing new.
"She loves, I think, just the adrenaline," Kathie said, "Just the adrenaline of going on there and going fast."
At 15, Hansen became the youngest female in history to win the Junior World Championships.
Ranked No. 7 in the world, Kate, who reaches speeds of up to 80 miles per hour on the ice, is training in France before departing for Sochi, where she will compete in two races — one on Feb. 10, the other on Feb. 11.
Despite recent terror threats in the region, Kathie says she and Kate's father intend to attend the games.
"I'm really not nervous," Kathie said. "They did tell us not to wear anything American, [or] anything to call attention to ourselves."