LUGE: The Australian luge squad is training on the Olympic sliding track where the competition for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be held in three months time. 

Ashley Cooney, Alex Ferlazzo, Daniel Newtown and Nick Mides are all getting valuable experience ahead of the crucial two months of Olympic qualification.

"I'm having a great time here in Sochi!" Olympic hopeful Ashley Cooney said.  

"The atmosphere is amazing and everyone from the athletes themselves to the hundreds of volunteers working around the clock are all inspired to be back here in February."

The athletes have had the opportunity to personally analyse the Sanski Sliding Centre, 60 kilometres north-east of Sochi, over the past few days. Familiarising themselves with the corners, lines and feeling of the track. "This track is different from others," 2012 Winter Youth Olympian Alex Ferlazzo said.

"There are long entries and exits in most of the corners. It isn't a hard track to finish but it's a hard track to be fast on."

"The track itself is like no other track I've slid on before," former gymnast Cooney said. "The ice is so smooth making a clean exhilarating ride."

Technically the track is not too difficult but both athletes are looking to improve with corners 6 to 11. 

"I find the middle part of the track the most difficult, so from corner 6 to 11," 18-year-old Ferlazzo said.

"For me at the moment I'm finding it hard to recover from small errors starting in corner 7 causing problems until 11," Cooney said.

Ferlazzo and Cooney are fully aware that the smallest of errors are detrimental to your overall time. 

"Sochi is one of those tracks where if you make a mistake in one corner it will affect you for three corners after. Staying on the perfect line is vital for sliding a respectable time - this track has no place for error," Ferlazzo said.

"All in all the ice is ridiculously smooth (feels like you're floating) making it a comfortable and fast track to slide on," Ferlazzo concluded. 

The luge athletes have two more days in Sochi before they travel to Lillehammer, Norway for the first World Cup of the season. 

"We have two more days here in Sochi before qualification begins," Cooney said. "By this time we would have all completed 10 runs from our respective start heights, which is the first requirement to get to Sochi."

Australia hopes to qualify one quota place for men and one for women at the Sochi Games which start open on 7 February. Rankings determine the quota place and selection meaning the four World Cups before Christmas – Lillehammer (NOR), Igls (AUT), Calgary (CAN) and Park City (USA) – is what the dreams of these four young Australians rely on.

The top 28 women and 38 men on Olympic adjusted rankings (maximum three from each nation) after a minimum of five World Cups will qualify for the Games.

Cooney has already turned tragedy into triumph by changing sports and now competing internationally. If she can qualify for Sochi it will have been one of the most unlikely paths of anyone at the Games. Campbell-Pegg, Diane Ogle (Albertville 1992) and Roger White (Lillehammer 1994) total Australia’s Olympic luge history to date.

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