Back then, the Lake Placid native and his doubles luge partner Zack DiGregorio were the youngest American lugers at the Beijing Olympics. Hollander, now 25, jokes about how he’s the second-oldest men’s slider for this Olympic team.

“We were both just kind of excited to be there (last time),” Hollander said. “We’ve accomplished so much more since those first Games.”

He’s not kidding, either. The duo has grown a lot in those four years. They’ve won two World Cup men’s doubles medals and six World Cup relay medals. They’ve finished top 10 in the FIL Luge World Cup men’s doubles standings for the past three seasons.

They even have their own sled after borrowing two-time Olympian Jayson Terdiman’s during the 2022 Olympics, since he had just missed out on the Games. Though Terdiman did jokingly offer his sled once again.

But for Hollander, he feels like he and DiGregorio are actually in the race this time.

“(It’s) a cool feeling, but we’re also not trying to let that get to our heads,” he said. “(We hope to) just keep doing what we’ve been doing, that’s gotten us the success. So we’re still excited, but excited to actually be competitive as well.”

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Born to slide

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Hollander first got a taste for the sport at 10, thanks to a field trip when he was in elementary school. His older sister, Rachel, first tried the sport and even made a USA Luge development team. His younger sister, Beatrice, did about two runs before deciding it wasn’t for her.

But Hollander fell in love with the sport right away.

“I loved the speed, having to always just have something to improve on every run,” he said. “I just enjoyed the process of just seeing how good you could get at something.”

He remembers joining the Adirondack Luge Club and taking those first few runs.

“It’s always so cold in, like, lasting in the winter, and you’re just layered up as many thermals as you can put on,” Hollander said. “You’ve got the shin guards, elbow pads and no face shield. I mean, it literally is just the next level of sliding down your local snow mound. But it was so much fun.”

He laughs, thinking about how his parents might not have known what he was doing

“I don’t think my parents would have let me do it if they actually knew what luge was,” Hollander said. “I kind of got away with it.”

Hollander attended Lake Placid Central School for a bit while spending the summer’s training with USA Luge. He then went to the now-defunct National Sports Academy in Lake Placid for a few years before finishing high school online. Hollander said growing up in Lake Placid definitely jump-started his luge career, and he doesn’t think he fully appreciated how unique an experience it was.

While other luge athletes could only take runs down the track during USA Luge camps, Hollander was able to go down it with his luge club on the weekends.

“(Then) I got to start training with the senior team pretty early in the weight room,” he said. “I just got to see all these other athletes and how they trained all summer. I think that helps with a lot of my training technique, my start technique, lifting and all of that.”

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Doubles time

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Like all doubles sliders on the current USA Luge national team, Hollander started as a singles slider.

For the most part, he was pretty good at it. In 2019, he won the Norton Junior National Championship and the year prior, he won both the Norton Spring Seeding Races and the Youth National Championship.

But with the Olympics in mind, the duo of DiGregorio and Hollander decided the best way to make the 2022 Olympic Winter Games would be if they doubled up. While it took a bit of convincing from the coaches, it ultimately worked.

Despite having only trained together for 18 months before the 2022 Olympics, they went to Beijing, China, as the only men’s doubles team. During those Games, they placed 11th in the doubles event and seventh in the team relay.

This time around, Hollander and DiGregorio will have another men’s doubles team competing with them in Ansel Haugsjaa and Marcus Mueller, as well as a women’s doubles team in Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby.

Hollander said it’s great, a really solid doubles program, while noting how big a leap the U.S. has taken in that discipline that has produced four Olympic medals since its inception, with the last one in 2002.

He pointed out that a few years ago, Chris Mazdzer, a men’s singles slider, had to deliberately switch to doubles just so the U.S. could have a team relay. Now all three U.S. doubles teams have won a World Cup medal this season.

“Having two (men’s) double teams that can win World Cups, going into this quad just shows how much we’ve accomplished in the last four years,” Hollander said.

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Olympics

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As the USA Luge squad is set to compete for its first Olympic medal since 2018, the team will have to do so on a brand-new track.

However, the entire USA Luge team, as well as all the other countries competing, does have a bit of experience racing there. In November, the Cortina Sliding Center held a test-event, which all the sliders took part in.

Hollander said the Italians definitely have a big home-field advantage because they get to train there a lot more than all the other countries.

“But for everyone else, it definitely evens out the playing field a lot,” he said. “The Germans and the Austrians, they have the same number of runs there as us. It’s nice to not be kind of fighting on their home turf like we do all year long. So, I think it’ll definitely shake some things up.”

Hollander, like the other luge Olympians on the team, is also looking forward to having a crowd in Cortina.

During the 2022 Games, the coronavirus pandemic put a halt to spectators attending the Olympics, which meant family members couldn’t watch their loved ones slide. But with fans allowed this time around, Hollander said he’ll have a decent crowd making the trip over to Italy.

He added that his fiancee, Paige Jones, will also be there. However, she’s not necessarily attending the Olympics just to watch Hollander. Jones qualified for the Games herself just last week and will compete for the U.S. women’s ski jumping team.

“I’m excited to watch her compete,” Hollander said. “I’m kind of reliving that first Games experience vicariously through her and her excitement. I think it’s gonna be a lot better than China was.”

The Olympic Opening Ceremony in Milan, Italy, takes place Feb. 6. There is a six-hour forward time change from Milan to the U.S. Eastern.

Men’s singles will kick off on Feb. 7 and 8. Women’s singles is Feb. 9 and 10. Men’s and women’s doubles is Feb. 11 and the team relay is Feb. 12. To view the full Olympic schedule, visit tinyurl.com/2wppx4dm.