Mortensen Anchors Team Relay To Fourth Place Finish

Huntington Station resident Matt Mortensen was just one place shy of a metal in the team relay luge event on Thursday after placing 10th in the doubles luge the day prior at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

Team USA completed their relay in a time of 2 minutes and 25.091 seconds, which was 0.574 seconds slower than first place, Germany, and .103 seconds slower than third place, Austria.

What is a team relay? It's a new event that debuted in the 2014 Olympics. NBC Olympics says each relay team consists of three sleds: women’s singles, men’s singles and doubles. NBC explains how the event works.

"The competition starts with the women’s singles sled. At the finish, she hits an overhead touchpad, which opens the start gate for the men’s singles sled. Once he finishes and hits the overhead touchpad, the doubles sled makes the final run down the course.

The timing is continuous, so the winner is the nation with the lowest time after all three sleds have finished."

Also, the men race using the women's start, which they have little experience in doing.

Summer Britcher led off the team relay and was followed by Chris Mazdzer, who made history by being the first American in history by winning a metal (silver) in the men's single luge event.

Mortensen and his doubles teammate Jayson Terdiman anchored the relay. They were able to edge Italy for fourth place by two-thousandths of a second.

Mortensen, however, wrote on his Facebook page that the results "were a real heartbreaker."

"They say 4th is the hardest position to finish in," he said. "It definitely hurts. However, I say we did a hell of a job."

Check out the team relay results here.

Image via USOlympicTeam/Flickr