"My goal is to go to the 2030 Olympics," said luger Kendall Achen. Now the Manheim Central High School freshman-to-be is one step closer to reaching that goal.

Kendall, the daughter of Stacy and Mike Achen of Manheim, was recently promoted to the USA Luge Jr. National Candidate Team after having spent three years on the Development Team. The Candidate Team is typically for athletes who show potential to reach the National Team but who have aged out of the Development Team by reaching age 15. Kendall, at just 13 years old, didn't age out of the first team, but instead, she was chosen for the new team based on her ability to train and compete successfully with older athletes.

"Kendall's coaches each agreed that she was more than ready to move up to the Candidate Team at the end of last season, after she had started sliding from the women's start on the track, the highest level she will ever have to slide from, which is not typical for a 13-year-old athlete," Stacy explained.

Kendall will train and compete in Lake Placid, N.Y.; in Park City, Utah; and potentially at Whistler Mountain near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, if ice time is available. "The athletes of the Jr. National Candidate Team that are not new to the team this year will be training to compete in the Youth Olympic Games to be held in South Korea in early 2024," Stacy noted. "However, as a first-year athlete on the Candidate Team, Kendall and others who are new to the team will not qualify to compete in those games."

Kendall spent a good portion of the summer at training camps in Lake Placid, where her regimen shifted due to the warm weather. "During the camps, the athletes stay at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center and do everything they do during winter training, but with the ice melted off the track for the summer, they train on wheeled sleds up at Mount Van Hoevenberg, the same location as the ice track, 'sliding' on a macadam path that serves as their track, while navigating courses of varying difficulty created by their coaches," Stacy shared.

Kendall's training also included workouts with weightlifting sessions, agility, reaction time and flat ice training, where she practiced her paddling on the ice rink in Lake Placid.

"Kendall also recently got a rowing machine, which will help her with faster starts, as the rowing motion mimics the athlete pulling off the handles at the start of their run down the track," Stacy said. "In addition to having a rowing machine at home, Kendall does weight training as well as workouts designed by her coaches, and she uses a pull-up bar to target the specific muscle groups required to maximize power to achieve faster starts."

Kendall said she loves the sport of luge, and she's excited to be progressing as an athlete, all with her goal of reaching the Olympics. "It's important to me because it's a sport that not a lot of athletes do, and the Olympics is where the best of the best compete," she said. "I would be proud to represent my country at the Olympics someday."