American luger Summer Britcher beat the last two Olympic champions from powerhouse Germany to win a World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway, on Saturday.
“This was a different situation for me,” Britcher said, according to USA Luge. “Every time, other than this, that I’ve been on the podium, I didn’t expect it. There were either weather changes, or I changed equipment last minute and I was kind of surprised to find myself there. But after the week of training and after the final A seed training run, this was the first time that I had to go to sleep knowing that if I performed well, and if have two good runs, I have a good chance of winning.”
It’s the most impressive victory for a U.S. luger since Erin Hamlin‘s world title in 2009.
Britcher, a 23-year-old qualified for PyeongChang, became the first U.S. woman to win a non-sprint World Cup outside North America since Kate Hansen in 2014.
But Hansen, whose victory was the first by a U.S. woman at any World Cup since 1997, didn’t have to go through the top Germans.
Britcher edged 2014 Olympic champion Natalie Geisenberger by .033 on Saturday. Fellow Germans Julia Taubitz and 2010 Olympic champion Tatjana Huefner were third and fourth.
Britcher’s previous three World Cup wins, all in the 2015-16 season, were all on North American tracks.
All three women on the U.S. Olympic luge team -- Britcher, Sochi bronze medalist Hamlin and Emily Sweeney -- have won at least one World Cup since the start of the 2016-17 season.
That breeds hope that the U.S. can claim its second Olympic singles luge medal in PyeongChang to follow up Hamlin’s breakthrough in 2014.
Germans won 12 straight full World Cup races on European tracks coming into Saturday.
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