Potsdam luge athlete races to South Korea

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Seth Coates. Photo submitted.

 POTSDAM -- Seth Coates, 15, a ninth grader at Potsdam High School, has raced his way onto a select team of teenage luge athletes headed to PyeongChang, South Korea, site of the 2024 Youth Olympic Games.

Coates earned one of Team USA’s three men’s spots by collecting points in the recent North American Continental Cup series. Coates placed sixth in a race in Whistler, Canada on January 14, then placed fifth in Park City, Utah, on January 21. Ten athletes, selected from the USA Luge Junior Candidate Team, leave Friday to train and race in PyeongChang in a pre-Youth Olympic Games Test Event and Asian Continental Cup.

Coates got his first taste of international competition on the European Continental Cup Circuit in fall of 2022. He placed ninth out of 35 sleds in a race in Bludenz, Austria, despite missing the previous race due to an injury.

Coates began sliding regularly in 2018 with the Adirondack Luge Club in Lake Placid, NY. He was named to the USA Luge Junior National D Team in 2020 and was promoted to the USA Luge Junior National C Team in May, 2022.

“Traveling with my teammates and coaches this fall and winter has been such a great experience,” Coates said. “I am learning so much about different luge tracks and the special skills I need to be successful at each one. I’m looking forward to getting some experience on the PyeongChang track in hopes of competing there next year at the Youth Olympic Games.”

Led by coach Jayson Terdiman, two-time Team USA Olympian, Coates will join men’s singles teammates Orson Colby (Riverton, Utah) and Nathan Bivins (Castleton, NY), as well as women’s singles sliders Talia Tonn (Cecil, Wis.), Elizabeth Kleinheinz (Santa Clara, Calif.), and Brianna Gosnell (Eveansberg, Pa.). Two women’s doubles teams round out the travel team: Goldie Miller (Englewood, Ohio) and Haidyn Bunker (West Farmington, Ohio), and Margaret Richardson (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) and Adeline Albert (Worthington, Ohio).

To support Coates’s training and competition journey to South Korea and beyond, donate to his training fund at http://tiny.cc/SethCoates or contact [email protected] for sponsorship information.

For more information on USA Luge, visit www.usaluge.org. To learn more about the Adirondack Luge Club, visit www.adk-luge.com.