It was a combination of opportunity, access, cooperation, proper equipment, ingenuity, and hard, fast work under the pressure of the clock. We had the opportunity to wire a camera to one of our Olympic hopefuls, access to the Lake Placid Luge and Bobsled track, the cooperation of the USA Luge organization and more specifically Woodinville’s Christian Niccum, a world class luger poised to make his first Olympic team.

We had a tiny new camera good enough to generate high quality pictures and Jones had the ingenuity to wire it to Christian’s sled and body four different ways for four different views of the trip down the track. And we had just a few minutes between runs to change the camera location, make sure everything worked and get the sled sliding at the right time as called by the starter. (Take a look at the pictures and read Ken Jones' account of how he wired the luge for TV.)

And it worked. Boy did it work. Tremendous, dynamic video, the screen defined by a luge track hurtling by at 70 miles an hour, the blue sky and autumn leaves and sunshine and corner fencing and track roofing all spinning and bouncing and flashing into a wild high-speed collage, with you riding the sled, feeling the g-forces and the rush and the rattling and the wind and the vertical stretch of the big banked corners and the exhaustion at the finish. All of it buttressed by the rough screaming of the wind and clatter of steel on ice and in some cases by Christian Niccum’s breathless play-by-play of his run and distorted audio of him giggling and yelling and just enjoying the ride. It’s good stuff.

And we have four different angles. One from the front of the sled, one with the lens taped to Christian’s leg, pointing back at his face, one with the camera taped to his helmet, and the last with the tiny lens free on a cable, hand held and pointed here there and everywhere by Christian as he flew down the track.

We met Christian and a few of his luge teammates for a beer last night and convinced the tavern owner to let us commandeer and television set and show the pictures. They loved it, the bartenders and a few bar customers loved it and it set off a whole new round of back-slapping and high-fiving and laughter.

Now, how do we use it? Hey Cory! Net-boy! We should put all of these clips up on the website. Sled-cam, thigh-cam, helmet-cam and Niccum-Cam. Pick and click and turn up the volume and take the ride you want. (Cory: As soon as Allen and K.J. return later this week, we'll do just that.)

We’ll also use it in many future news stories as we follow Christian Niccum’s efforts to make the Olympic team in the push towards the games in Torino in February. He’s a very interesting and thoughtful athlete who has been seriously addicted to luging since he was 12 years old. His teammates and coaches admit he’s a bit wild, likely to flame out one day and set a track record the next, willing to consider the limits of his talent and the engineering restraints of the track and then blow past both in search of the perfect run. He’s a bit of a luge savant, willing to talk at length about the need to let go, clear your mind and allow the sled to run and find the quickest way to the bottom. He talks about working hard to do as little as possible, finding the right line down the hill by not looking for it and he talks often about the pure kid-thrill of the sport he’s pursued for more than half his life..

Let’s hope he makes it. He’s on the World Cup team right now and races in the next six weeks in Europe and Lake placid should tell the story. We’ll follow him and let you know what’s happening. The first big race is in Latvia, next weekend.

Gotta go.