Three hours after the dispersal of the crowd of approximately 500 people drawn to the Whistler Sliding Centre for the facility’s recent open house and the bobsleigh national team selection races, it was the kids’ turn to hit the track.

Eager young sliders from the corridor took to the icy, twisting trail with gusto, hanging onto their luge sleds as they shot down the bottom half of the track to reach speeds around 70 kilometres per hour. Their gleeful reactions rang out in shouts at the start and finish lines.

“That was so fun!”

“Can we go higher?”

“I’m glad I didn’t fall!”

The Saturday and Sunday afternoon (Nov. 1 and 2) sessions gave the eight- to 14-year-old sliders a first taste of the tricky track that had toppled three men’s bobsleighs Saturday morning. But the kids, who came to the recruitment camps following summer sessions off the track, started well below the technical turns that had confounded the elite athletes.

Organizers including Nicole Simon of the Canadian Luge Association carefully positioned the young sliders on luges between corners 12 and 13, before releasing them into the bottom of the 16-corner track. All the kids had to do in these inaugural runs was hold on to the sleds, keep their feet up and try to relax as gravity pulled them swiftly down the track.

They made it look easy.

“It was so fun. I want to do it again!” eight-year-old Sam Johnston crowed as soon as he finished his second of five runs on Saturday.

Seth Bondaroff, 10, said the runs were “fun, really fun,” even though the first try was a bit intimidating.

“It was scary the first time ’cause everybody else was going fast,” Bondaroff said as he stood next to the finish line.

Grayson Keam, also 10, admitted to some mixed feelings before his first trip down the track.

“I just was thinking, ‘I can’t wait to do this, but I really wish I wasn’t doing it,’” Keam said. Asked why he felt that way, he answered honestly, “I don’t know, ’cause you just think it’s scary, but you really want to.”

After the run, the desire easily overpowered the fear. Keam’s response to the question of whether he’s looking forward to trying again? An unequivocal and instant “oh yeah!”

After the recruitment sessions, an official sliding season beckons for the kids. Tyler Seitz, a two-time Olympic luge competitor and 10-year World Cup circuit veteran who now works at the sliding centre, will coach the new youth program along with Simon.

Participants will have to attend recruitment camps to be invited into the program, and all of the 23 kids in last weekend’s sessions earned invitations to continue, Simon said. The coaches are simply looking for enthusiasm and good behaviour, Seitz said.

“It’s just about showing them, getting them excited, and looking for enthusiastic kids that are well behaved — because of the safety aspect of the sport, we have to keep in mind good behaviour around the sport because it’s so dangerous. We have to keep the kids focused. But yeah, (we’re) just looking for enthusiastic kids that love the sport,” Seitz said as he monitored the finish line.

As a young girl blew past Seitz at around 75 kilometres per hour, he delighted in her speed and the opportunities offered by the track.

“It’s amazing. The track is built so nicely for development because you can get high speed without much risk,” Seitz said. “It’s not very technical from these starts. It’s only when you get up higher, to the juniors’ start or the ladies’ start, that it gets very technical. This bottom part is just built beautifully to introduce high speeds at a very safe level. I’m really excited about it.”

As they progress, the young racers will keep moving their start lines back up the track bit by bit, until they reach a point where they feel challenged, Seitz said. While the kids clamoured to start higher right away on Saturday, moving further up the track at the start of each run, the progression will slow considerably during training, Seitz said, as the technical elements start to crop up.

The cost of the training program is $850 for a season’s worth of track time, coaching and equipment use, Simon said. The program will include sliding sessions six times per week, and the participants will be asked to take advantage of at least two or three of those each week, to maximize time during the short four-month season, she said.

The program can accommodate about 40 athletes, and Simon said a few have signed up already. Further recruitment sessions have been scheduled for the following dates and times at the sliding centre: Nov. 23, Dec. 20, Jan. 18 and Feb. 28, all from 3 to 6 p.m. Participants must pre-register at www.luge.ca.