Cammy Myler '92, dubbed the "most successful female luger in USA history," is gearing up for her fourth Olympic Games this year in Nagano, Japan.
Myler holds over 30 U.S. track records for luging -- a sport in which competitors travel down a bobsled course on a sled with blades.
The youngest person to ever win a national luge championship, Myler has an impressive list of credentials dating back to 1988 -- when she placed ninth in the Calgary Olympics -- and is currently tied for second in the overall World Cup standings.
Myler graduated cum laude in 1995 after taking eight years to finish her undergraduate degree due to her luge career. Myler only spent time on campus during the spring and summer, while she traveled and trained during Winter and Fall terms.
Born in Plattsburgh, N.Y., Myler got started luging in 1980 after the Olympics in her current residence, Lake Placid. Her parents -- who volunteered at the Winter Games that year -- started her in a training program.
"I have been on a sled ever since," she said in an interview fromNagano. She was 11 years old at the time, and describes luge as "a magical event that is exciting to see at any age."
Myler also won the NYNEX Invitational in 1991 and to date holds three World Cup victories, including this year's competition in Sigulva, Latvia.
Not only does she hold six national titles (the team high), she also competed in Albertville and Lillehammer, and won fifth-place standing in Albertville. She served as a 1994 U.S. Olympic flag bearer and this year won the 1998 Bell Atlantic National Championship for the seventh time.
Although she had never considered the Olympics as a possibility, when she was 15 years old she joined the national luge team and started contemplating the idea.
"I have been on the team for 14 years," she said. "When I was first on it, I was by far the youngest person, and now I am the oldest woman."
It has not all been easy for Myler though, who sustained a skiing injury in March of 1985 and required three knee operations. However, she has been performing well in Olympic competitions ever since.
"Olympic years bring a lot of pressure. [But], if I have what are good runs for me then I think things will turn out well," Myler said.
Myler's nervousness about Nagano is understandable. Luge is the only Olympic sport that is timed to a thousandth of a second, and races are often won or lost due to minuscule starting mistakes.
Despite the pressure, she has been named the Female Luge Athlete of the Year for nine straight years and is excited about the upcoming Games.
But she has other things on her mind too.
Myler recently applied to the law schools at Cornell University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Boston College, but she is not sure if her upcoming academic venture will mean the end to her luge career.
"I didn't want to go through this whole season thinking that this would be my last race," Myler said.
As for sponsorship, she said that she does not have any individual sponsors at the current time. Bell Atlantic -- the primary sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Luge Team -- supplies over half of the budget for the team.
"I do have an agent and I will have a couple of things going on," she said. "Rules governing amateur status are really strict, though."
Regarding the Nagano competition, she said, "There are definitely a lot of strong women competing and on any given day anyone could win the race. We'll see."
And even if Myler doesn't perform as well as she hopes, law school is just around the corner.
