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CESANA PARIOL -- The Germans, as expected, owned the luge track Monday in the first two heats of women's singles. But their bid for a second consecutive sweep of Olympic medals won't go unchallenged in tonight's final two runs.
Courtney Zablocki saw to that. After an early crash by Italy's Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova sidelined the Germans' biggest threat, the 25-year-old American slid into fourth place, a surprising 0.004 second behind Tatjana Huefner of Germany.
German teammates Sylke Otto, the defending Olympic champion, and Silke Kraushaar, who won the bronze four years ago in Salt Lake City, took a stranglehold on first and second. But Zablocki positioned herself to not only knock Huefner off the podium and deny the Germans another sweep, but earn the USA's first singles medal in Olympic history.
"It will take a lot," said Zablocki, who finished 13th in the 2002 Games. "But anything is possible. It's a four-run race."
Cammy Myler (1992) and Becky Wilczak (2002) own the U.S.'s best Olympic finishes in women's singles. Both had fifths.
"Courtney has so much confidence right now," U.S. team manager Fred Zimny said. "I've never seen her with so much confidence."
Zablocki came into the Games as the USA's best female slider, but she wasn't expected to contend for a medal with the powerful Germans in the field and Oberstolz-Antonova, ranked fourth in the world, competing on her home track.
Although Zablocki finished a surprising fifth on this track in the Olympic test event last November, she wound up ninth overall in the World Cup standings. Her best World Cup finish was fourth in 2001-02.
Now she's flirting with the biggest payday of her career. The Germans pose a formidable roadblock, however. Their team is to the sport what the old New York Yankees were to baseball: a dynasty.
The Germans have won 24 of a possible 33 medals since the first Olympic competition in 1964 and have strung together 64 consecutive World Cup wins since November 1997.
"They have a lot of depth and a lot more money than we do," Zablocki said. "It's hard. You have to keep working."
She knows what's at stake.
Asked what it would mean to end an 11-Olympic singles medal drought dating to 1964, she said, "I would hope it would bring a lot more exposure to our sport back home. Nobody sees what goes into it. Sometimes it's frustrating, but I like what I do."
Contributing: Mike Dodd
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