BEIJING — In the moments before the crash that ended one’s career but not the other’s, Chris Mazdzer and Jayson Terdiman felt free.
They were zooming down a luge track in Sigulda, Latvia, just as they had hundreds of times over the years. They were speeding around curves, blissfully at one with each other and their sled. They were two luge lifers, partners as teens and now again in their 30s, flying toward the 2022 Olympics. Muscle memory took over. Autopilot kicked in. It was everything they’d envisioned, everything they’d worked for, everything that, they hoped, would take them to a Beijing podium in February, a long-awaited medal around Terdiman’s neck.