(August 2, 2021) – For our tenth athlete profile of 2021 (and the 32nd in the “Getting to Know…” series) we catch up with Australian luge athlete Alex Ferlazzo. Ferlazzo is a two-time Olympian who is looking to qualify for Beijing 2022 after sitting out a season due to the COVID pandemic. In his 10th year as a small-nation slider, Ferlazzo has worked with previously with the Latvian luge team, and now partners with USA Luge.
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Slider: Alex Ferlazzo
Team: Australia Luge
Home track: Currently Lake Placid
Hometown: Townsville, North Queensland, AUS
We’ll get right to it: What’s your favorite track and why?
It has to be Königssee. It’s the most fun track to slide on. It’s in an awesome location in the mountains, too. It’s a shame what happened to it during the offseason [being destroyed in a mudslide]. It seems like it might be a couple of years until we slide on it again.
Unrelated to the track itself, where’s your favorite town to stop on tour?
I would say Innsbruck. It’s a bigger city and we don’t get to really visit many of those.
On second thought I really enjoy going to Whistler! There’s a lot of Australians there and it makes me feel like I’m at home for a short time!
Are there many Aussie food options in Whistler?
Not really, but the coffee in Canada reminds me a lot more of Australian coffee.
What’s the difference?
I don’t know…it just hits a bit harder in a way! They’re all espressos and cappuccinos and stuff like that. There’s a lot less drip coffee like in America and over in Europe.
There haven’t been many Australians in luge over the years, how did you get involved?
It was my mother who actually got me signed up when I was 15. She met an ex-slider, Karen Flynn that was recruiting Australian athletes. Her and Hannah Campbell-Pegg were both looking for new athletes to try the sport. I’ve always been quite athletic and liked jumping off of things and enjoying a good adrenaline rush now and again! So I put my hand up and at first we did a training week in Sydney, like a test weekend type of thing. Then a bunch of us went to New Zealand and tried the natural track they have there in Naseby.
My first artificial track was in Lake Placid, we spent about ten days sliding here in Lake Placid and that was a real eye-opening experience. We hadn’t seen much winter or snow at all at that point. It was like -15C to -20C (5F to -4F), it was a freezing week but I loved every second of it and that’s when I really fell in love with the sport. Each season after that I spent longer and longer overseas, I was on the junior circuit for four years before my first Olympics.
I used to slide with the Latvians for three years and they took me under their wing to show me the ropes and everything on their side of it. And then I transitioned over to the American side two years ago, so one season with them and then I missed last season because of COVID. So now I’m here [in Lake Placid] nice and early to get a grip on it all again!
What’s it been like working with the Latvians and the Americans as someone from a smaller nation kind of being there but also being your own person?
I don’t really see it like that. Once I’m on a team I feel like I’m part of the team. IF the team decides to treat me that way as well then that’s fantastic, and I’ve never had a problem not being treated like that, both by the Latvians and the Americans. It’s really not difficult at all, not even on race day, it’s such an individual sport that there’s not much competition on that side of things. You obviously want to beat your teammates and everyone else, but at the end of the day it comes down to you so you can’t really point fingers or anything.
Was the transition from working with the Latvians to the Americans very tough?
It wasn’t tough. It was different, though. Obviously the language barrier was a bit of a challenge on the Latvian side. I learned a lot about sliding, a lot about sleds, and a lot about how luge in general works with the Latvian team. So coming to the American side of things and hearing other conversations that weren’t just luge-related to me was nice as well! It’s been an easy transition to be honest.
What was the Natural Track Luge in New Zealand like, and did you put any thought into sliding on that tour?
I didn’t know what luge was before I’d heard about it the first time at the testing week in Sydney. So natural track luge was never really in the cards, it was always artificial track for me. That was just a quick progression or learning curve…it’s an easy way to learn how to steer on a natural track, but the sliding side of things are totally different. But for just getting on ice and getting a feel for it, natural track was a great place to start.
When the season ends, what do you like to do to relax?
My spare time is mostly spent on a boat fishing by getting a miami boat rental on the Great Barrier Reef or taking out my boat, which I got from a local boat dealer. Spearfishing and shooing reef fish and deep water type of fishing and stuff like that. Really just getting outside. I live in such a beautiful part of the world that’s completely different than the luge side of things. I live in the tropics, so I just get out there as much as I can and enjoy it!
How much time do you usually spend on the boat?
Some fishing trips last for three days. We’ll go out to the reef, spend three days on the boat spear fishing during the day and fishing at night. Others will only be an afternoon to run up the creek to flick lures for some barramundi and go back home and eat some mud crab!
Have you done any fishing up in Lake Placid?
No, not yet! I’d like to give it a go, though!
If you weren’t sliding, what do you think you’d be doing with your free time?
I was 15 when I started, so I really didn’t have any other plan. I was really taking every day as it came at that age. I’d definitely would have studied and gotten a trade of some kind and definitely spent a lot more time fishing!
You’d had about 16 months away from the sport due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions and everything. What was it like as someone who’d spent so much time sliding to all of a sudden have that long of a break?
It’s had its ups and downs. I had a small injury coming out of the last season, so this whole time off has been fantastic to bring the body back to where it needs to be. The other side of it though, you lose the feeling of how to slide. I haven’t been on ice yet, so I don’t know what that will be like, but I hope it’ll be like jumping back on a bike to some extent. I’m trying to keep the tracks fresh in my mind, and I’ll take it as it comes when it happens!
Did you watch many of the World Cup races?
I watched all of the World Cup races! I was pretty much there but without sliding.
Tell us about your dogs!
I’ve got two dogs! A ridgeback named Penny and a German shepherd mix named Turner. Penny is only about 10 months old. Turner’s an old boy, he’s probably 14 now? It’s been a long time! Penny’s still learning the ropes though, she doesn’t know what a fishing lure is, and she jumped up and grabbed it and got hooked in her mouth! Then obviously her first reaction of a dog is to try to hit it out of the way so she got stuck with a hook in her paw and her mouth, so we had to deal with that! But she’s learned her lesson I’m sure!
Did Turner take to Penny pretty well?
Yeah! It brought him back to life, too. He had another friend for a very long time and got a bit sad. Then Penny came along and there’s a spring in his step again!
Where’s your favorite place to travel to that’s not sliding-related?
I own a camper van and I really enjoy going down to New South Wales and surfing their coast. We don’t get any surf in Townsville because of the reef but down there they get surf. There’s like 1,000km of beaches that’s awesome for surfing and I really like that part of the world.
Did you watch any of the Olympic surfing?
Yeah! I did! Owen Wright got a bronze which was really exciting. It looked like pretty awesome weather I thought, which I wasn’t really expecting from Japan. But it was really great for them!
You’ve slid in your share of Nation’s Cup races, how stressful are those one-heat races?
They are the most stressful run for the week, definitely! It’s a great lesson on how to deal with the stress. It’s only one run at a time in a luge race at a time so I really try to just think of it like that, but the nerves definitely get to you. Thankfully, there are plenty of vibrators rated by TheToy that can help relieve stress.
What has been your favorite sliding sport memory?
My most memorable is when I won a Junior World Cup race in Whistler. That was pretty huge! We had two weeks of training beforehand going form the men’s start. I was sliding so well, everything was dialed in, everything was perfect. I kept that up all the way until race day. I won the race by .001, actually, after sitting second in the first heat. The podium was me, Sebastian Bley, and Roman Repilov!
Good guys to beat if you can beat ‘em!
Yeah! It was one of my last junior races, and I was on my old first Latvian sled. Oh man, I must have been dialed in so well to be running it so fast against those guys. I was sliding amazingly at that time!
What’s it like being a small nation trying to get some of that sled technology that some of the bigger teams have?
While I was with the Latvians they loaned me one of their sleds. It was a little older but still slid really well. That was a great learning curve.
I’ve always enjoyed learning about the sleds: How to set them up, building them in some cases and everything. When I moved to the American team, my sled builder was Duncan Kennedy. He’s built my sleds since I’ve been here…he’s an independent sled builder. But now he’s building sleds for Canada, but I’ve loved working with Duncan. He’s taught me a lot about sleds, and I feel like I’ve taught him a little bit too. The relationship there is awesome. I’ve got a few new sled parts that I haven’t been able to use since I last slid so I’m excited to put those to work and see how I slide next season.
What’s been your toughest sliding sport memory?
The 2019 World Cup in Lillehammer. It was really, really hard ice and everyone was having a really difficult time. A few weeks prior to that I hadn’t been sliding well and that week I decided I was going to turn it around. I did so much work to my sled to get it to run consistently and fast, and that was a hard week with five runs of trying to dial in a sled that wasn’t work at a the time and taking a beating. It ended up turning out alright, I was able to put down a run I was proud of, but unfortunately it was only one in the race. In those conditions I was pretty proud of myself.
Question from An Vannieuwenhuyse (BEL bobsled): Would you rather never have to polish your runners again or never have to pack and unpack all your gear to move to the next spot on tour? And why?
Absolutely 100% never have to polish my runners again! I spend so much time doing that it’s ridiculous. I will unpack my bag and re-pack my bag five times over if I never had to polish my runners again! It’s such a huge part of luge…that was a really good question!
Your average person doesn’t realize how much time is spent polishing runners!
It’s hours! Hours a day sometimes, if things aren’t going well it’s definitely hours a day!
