USA Luge announces the nominees to the 2026 Olympic Winter Games

The process of selecting the nominees to the 2026 Olympic team for USA Luge has ended. The team features some familiar faces and some fresh faces, all capable of competing at the highest levels at the biggest sporting event in the world.  

In November of 2025, men’s singles athletes began the season by qualifying for the 2025-26 World Cup team. With four spots available and five athletes in the mix, Aidan Mueller, a young athlete with great potential, was the first slider eliminated from the process. 

From there, athletes had five races to earn their spot on Team USA in Cortina, site of the luge events. Those races were the test event in Cortina, the Park City, Lake Placid, Sigulda (Latvia), and Winterberg (Germany) World Cups. 

With the final qualification race in the books, the following athletes will compete at the Games in Cortina:

Ashley Farquharson (Park City, UT). Event: women’s singles. A 2022 Olympian, Ashley has been steadily climbing the rankings. After a seemingly endless streak of fourth place finishes, she finally broke through this season with her first-ever World Cup medal in Park City and followed it up the next week with another medal in Lake Placid. 

Emily Fischnaller (Lake Placid, NY) Event: women’s singles. Heading into her third Olympic Games, Emily’s story is one of grit and determination. After a crash at the 2018 Olympic Games which resulted in a broken neck and back, she bounced back with a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships. She repeated that accomplishment at the 2025 World Championships, along with regular appearances on the World Cup podium. Away from the ice, she recently married Italian luge Olympic medalist Dominik Fischnaller. 

Summer Britcher (Glen Rock, PA) Event: women’s singles. Like Emily, Summer also personifies the virtues of commitment in the face of adversity. The 2026 Games will be Summer’s fourth. After the Christmas break, she led the overall World Cup standings, something she also accomplished ten years ago. The years between featured highs and lows, but with two wins this season, Summer is back and a medal contender in February. 

Chevonne Forgan (Chelmsford, MA) and Sophia Kirkby (Lake Placid, NY) Event: women’s doubles. Chevonne and Sophia have a pair of World Championship medals under their belt. The duo also finished the 2024-25 season ranked third in the world. Away from the ice, Sophia has been using her pottery skills to make women’s doubles pins to trade at the 2026 Games. 

Jonny Gustafson (Massena, NY) Event: Men’s singles. After making his Olympic debut in Beijing, Jonny has slowly but surely risen up the ranks to be included among the top sliders in the world. He has stood on the podium at World Championship and World Cup events. He hopes to add an Olympic medal to his collection. 

Matt Greiner (Park City, UT) Event: men’s singles2026 will mark the first Olympics for Matt. After a successful career as a Junior, including two Junior World Championship medals, Matt jumped up to the National team last season and has been adjusting well to his new environment. His highlight of the season thus far was his career-best 15th place finish in Winterberg, Germany, which clinched him an Olympic nomination. 

Zack DiGregorio (Medway, MA) and Sean Hollander Lake Placid, NY) Event: men’s doubles. Zack and Sean, 2022 Olympians, were the surprise qualifiers of those Games. Four years later, they have emerged as World Cup winners at Lake Placid in 2023. Most recently, the secured a silver medal at the Park City World Cup in December of 2025. The duo have also been a part of seven World Cup relay medals. 

Marcus Mueller (Brookfield, WI) and Ansel Haugsjaa (Framingham, MA) Event: men’s doubles. The 2024 Junior World Champions have made a significant jump this season in the big leagues. In fact, they have two podiums appearance: a silver at the test event in Cortina and a gold at the Lake Placid World Cup. Despite their youth, they have been sliding like seasoned veterans in their second season on the World Cup tour and look to make a strong Olympic debut.

The qualification process also saw the elimination of some very notable athletes, including Tucker West, a three-time Olympian, three-time World Cup gold medalist and winner of 13 national start championships.  West (Lake Placid, NY) narrowly lost out on another Olympic Team berth in the final race of the series. 

Maya Chan (Chicago, IL) and Sophia Gordon (Sussex, WI) in women’s doubles and women’s singles athlete Emma Erickson (Park City, Utah) will not make the trip to Cortina. The men’s doubles duo of Dana Kellogg (Chesterfield, MA) and Frank Ike (Lititz, PA) and men’s singles slider Hunter Harris (East Fairfield, VT) also did not qualify. 

USA Luge congratulates all those who qualified and all those who took part in the process!