From Augusta, ME, USA
“I’m here today to announce my retirement from the sport of luge.”
With that, and after 19 years of sliding, USA Luge’s Julia Clukey has stepped away from the sport she loves.
In 2010, Clukey was diagnosed with Arnold-Chiari Syndrome. After corrective decompression surgery in 2011 she was able to continue sliding. At the end of the 2015/2016 FIL season, Clukey began to see symptoms pop up again.
“I started having reoccurring symptoms that I knew fairly quickly were related to my Arnold-Chiari,” she said in a press conference on August 9, 2016.
After meeting with her doctors, she decided that now was the time to retire.
“It’s in my best interest for the life I want for myself to hang up my sled and walk away,” Clukey said on her retirement. “I feel very fortunate for the career I’ve had in the sport of luge. Almost 20 years Iv’e spent sliding, competing, and feel so lucky that I was able to do something that I love for so long.”
Clukey finished 17th in the 2010 Winter Olympics. One year earlier, she finished fifth in the 41st FIL World Championships in Lake Placid. Clukey also scored a silver medal in both Women’s Luge and the Team Relay competition in the 2012/2013 World Cup stop in Lake Placid.
Clukey has a BS in Electrical Engineering this past December, and plans to continue her education at University of Maine in both Masters of Information Systems and MBA programs. She also has run “Julia Clukey’s Camp for Girls”, a week-long camp for girls entering 4th to 8th grade with the intention to “develop self-confidence and a healthy lifestyle” for those in attendance.
For more information on Julia Clukey, and Julia Clukey’s Camp for Girls, go to www.clukeyluge.com.
