James "Clay" Ives ( born James "Clay" Ives , September 5, 1972 , Bancroft , Ontario ) is a Canadian and American luge who performed at a high international level from 1989 to 2002. A participant in three winter Olympic games, with Canada representing the first two, and the United States the third. Bronze medalist of Salt Lake City, winner of two silver awards of the North American Championship, multiple winner of the national championship.
 Clay Ives | |
|---|---|
| general information | |
| Full name | James ives |
| Citizenship | |
| Date of Birth | September 5, 1972 (aged 46) |
| Place of Birth | Bancroft , Ontario |
| Growth | |
| Weight | |
| Specialization | |
| Club | Mineral-Capitol Luge Club |
| In the national team | since 1989 |
| Status | competes |
Biography
Clay Ives was born on September 5, 1972 in Bancroft , Ontario . He was the fourth child in the family. Father did not want all four to become hockey players, so he built a small 900-meter sleigh track near the house, and Clay trained there literally from childhood. At the age of seventeen, he had already passed the selection for the national team and began to take part in major international starts, showing pretty good results. Thanks to a series of successful performances, he was awarded the right to defend the country's honor at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer , where he took twentieth place in the single sleigh program and finished eighth in tandem with Bob Gasper , sharing this position with the Ukrainian luge.
In 1998, Ives went to compete at the Nagano Olympics , qualified without any problems and planned to compete for medals here, but in the end he took only fifteenth among singles. Shortly after these starts, he asked the Canadian Luge Federation to increase his salary and, having been refused, accepted American citizenship and joined the US team. In 1999, he won a silver medal at the North American Championship, two years later repeated this achievement. At the 2001 World Cup in Calgary, he was the ninth among singles and the sixth in team competitions, and after finishing all the cup stages, he was placed in the world ranking of the strongest sledders on the ninth line.
After gaining a foothold in the national team, he took part in the Salt Lake City races of the 2002 Olympic Games, where he managed to get to the third standings together with Chris Thorpe on a two-seater carriage and received, respectively, a bronze award. Since the competition in the team at that time sharply increased, Clay Ives soon decided to end his career as a professional athlete, giving way to young American sleigh riders. Now his children's slide in Bancroft is a landmark of the city and is often visited by tourists.
Links
- Profile on the FIL website
- Clay Ives - Olympic Stats at Sports-Reference.com