Katie and Torrey Cookman have been tearing up the luge circuit across Europe over the past month through the International Luge Federation Junior World Cup races.
Torrey and Katie had a competitive Junior World Cup race of the season in Umhausen, Austria over the weekend.
Despite raining conditions, they were able to guide their sleds to impressive finishes.
Katie, 16, and Torrey, 20, are grandchildren of Dick and Pat Cookman. Dick is a retired NMC professor of astronomy, geology and environmental science from 1970 to 2000. Cookman has owned and operated Enerdyne in Suttons Bay for the past 40-plus years.
Katie finished eighth in her first race, and finished 17th overall in the rankings this season on Saturday.
“I got the best ice because I went first and I got eighth. I would say I wasn’t really in it for the race. I don’t know where my head was, but I ended up getting 16th (in the second race),” Katie said. “It is what it is when it comes to having different ice conditions.”
Natural luge is not an Olympic sport, but luge is considered the fastest sports at the Winter Olympics where athletes are required to lay in the supine position — face up and feet first — on a sled and have to slide down a course that has plenty of turns.
Torrey had a 14th place finish on Saturday, and moved up a spot to 13 overall in the rankings.
In each junior World Cup that is raced, your ranking is based on your placement to earn points. First place gets 100 points, second place gets 85, and it just keeps going down from there.
The Cookmans will race at the European World Cup this weekend in Italy. They will then travel for their final junior World Cup race in Romania.
Both Torrey and Katie have finished in the top-10 multiple times during races in January. Katie is steadily gaining speed while facing her fears down the single track.
“I feel with the new coaching, the new (blades) and my experiences from last year that didn’t really hold me back or affect me much, and I’ve just been feeling a lot more confident, especially as the season has progressed,” Katie said.
Torrey and Katie attribute much of their success to new coach Jack Leslie.
“This year has allowed me to build confidence on the track and my mental preparations before each training and each race,” Torrey said. “It really helps to just go in knowing exactly what you need to do when you need to do it, and just having that confidence is huge.”
Torrey and Katie have had countless memorable experiences competing on the luge circuit.
Torrey is a sophomore at Western Michigan University, and Katie is a sophomore at Marquette High School.
Torrey loves the lifestyle and staying with the team abroad that spends time cooking and eating nearly every night.
This is the last year Torrey is allowed to compete for the junior team as he will be aging out of the program.
“I’d love to come back and compete. It looks like I’ll have to take two years off just to finish and graduate college, and then we’ll see … I’m trying to work a gap year into my schedule and I’ll hopefully come back and race again,” Torrey said.
Torrey will be heading to Melbourne, Australia once the season is over to study abroad at Swinbutn University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia University next semester.
The brother and sister relationship between Torrey and Katie has its ups and downs, but they are used to living with each other.
“It really depends on the day, but I feel like it’s kind of the same for all of the people here because we live with each other for three months or two months out of the year, and so we’re all kind of like brothers and sisters. But I feel like Torrey and I have a really good relationship, so it doesn’t really affect it much,” Katie said and Torrey added. “That said, we’re just at each other’s throats about five minutes before you called.”
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