A winter holiday at his grandparents' house near Naseby, Central Otago, has put Timaru's Tyler Day on the fast track in a new sport - luge.
When the 14-year-old Roncalli College pupil heard about a luge training course at the township's new natural luge course from his grandfather, he decided it would be an interesting way to spend the holidays.
‘‘It seemed like an opportunity that would only come once to me.''
On Saturday, at the end of a five-day course, he competed in an open competition and came fourth out of 30 competitors in the under-20 category.
That has inspired Tyler to take the sport more seriously.
He is planning to return to Naseby twice next month, for a weekend training camp and for the national championships.
Tyler was among 22 South Island school children and one adult who took part in last week's training camp.
They were coached by an Austrian, Karl Flacher, an International Luge Federation coach and former Austrian luge champion who has coached the Austrian and German national teams.
The course was held at Naseby's 360m natural luge track - the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere - which has been built on a pine-covered slope behind the Maniototo International Curling Rink and Maniototo Ice Rink.
Natural track luge is a variation on Olympic luge, which takes place on the artificially-refrigerated,
banked tracks also used by bobsleds. Natural luge uses an unbanked track with a base of hard-packed snow covered with a layer of ice, usually enclosed by low wooden walls.
Tyler said the luge was turned by a difficult combination of leaning, pushing on the sled with one foot and pulling the reins with one hand.
Although a little apprehensive at first, Tyler had done more than 70 runs during the week and now ‘‘liked the speed''. Sleds are able to travel up to 70kmh.
The only down side was ‘‘very achy'' legs from repeatedly walking up the hill to the top of the course.
New Zealand Olympic Luge Association president Geoff Balme said the best analogy for comparing Olympic and natural luge was Formula One and rally car racing.
Many Olympic lugers start out in natural luge and he hoped the training camp would unearth a future international competitor in either discipline.
Mr Balme said many towns in the alpine resort regions of the northern hemisphere had natural luge tracks and in Europe there was a World Cup circuit of eight races a year and a world championship every second year.
He was pushing to have the sport included in the second edition of the two-yearly Pacific Rim Winter Games, to be held in Central Otago and Dunedin in 2011.
But Mr Balme's immediate goal was for the children who attended last week's training camp to form a luge club.
