Chris Thorpe/Gordy Sheer Luge Age: 27 / 26 Birthplace: Waukegan, Illinois / White Plains, New York Residence: Marquette, Michigan / Croton, New York Height & Weight: 6-feet-2, 190 pounds / 5-feet-10, 145 pounds Events: Doubles Thorpe and Sheer discuss their enduring friendship (2.42MB Quick Time) Potato mischief (970KB Quick Time)

Back in 1987, when a juniors coach first paired up Chris Thorpe and Gordy Sheer and had them zip down an icy luge chute together, it was clear this would not be your run-of-the-mill partnership.

But then, doubles luge is not your run-of-the-mill sport.

"We were kind of a pain in the ass to the older people on the team," Thorpe recalled. "We took it really almost lightheartedly at first. Really having a great time sliding together and having fun and doing things our way, not the normal way. But we knew it would take a big change [to be best in the world] and we made that change"

Thorpe and Sheer -- or is that Sheer and Thorpe? -- have gone from those carefree days as juniors to the top of the run as medal favorites in Nagano. They were silver medalists at both the 1995 and 1996 world championships and last year they became the first non-European team ever to win a World Cup title.

In luge, a sport dominated by Germans and Italians, it seemed the pair had practically come out of nowhere to become contenders.

"It took us 10 years to learn how to drive the damn sled," says Sheer, "so it wasn't exactly exploding on the scene"

Their goal now? To win America's first-ever Olympic luge medal. It's a serious proposition, but not one they take all that seriously.

"When we sit down with the sled, most teams will sit there kind of stone-faced and silent," says Sheer. "Chris and I, on the other hand, have this routine down where we talk about just anything. We cover every single aspect of that run, and how we are going to deal with that. And we talk about eight million things in about a minute. And generally we end a routine, I'll look at Chris and I say `Don't choke', and that kind of is like our tension breaker"

Sheer became engrossed watching luge on television in 1984 and, while he and his family were vacationing in Lake Placid that year, he spotted a U.S. luge team van with the phone number painted on it and made a call. Thorpe was 4, watching the 1976 Olympics from Innsbruck, when he was struck -- figuratively speaking -- by the luge. As a teen, he tried luge in his hometown of Marquette, Michigan.

When coach Lynn Hancock saw the angular Thorpe and the sturdy Sheer as juniors in 1987, he saw a natural team.

It didn't work, at first.

"We used to not finish races, we were inconsistent, we'd blow up and we'd hurt ourselves and then we got tired of that," remembers Sheer. "And we started to think about every possible occurrence or everything that could happen on the way down, and if it did happen, what would we do about it. Then we made corrections and went up".

The two, who share a house together in Lake Placid, New York, have become incredibly close, a real prerequisite for luge doubles.

"When you're going through a turn, first of all you're vertical, you're going 80 mph and if the sled gets away from you, you have half of a tenth of a second, a tenth of a second, to react and fix the mistake. And when it takes two people to fix a mistake in a half a tenth of a second, it's just amazing. And we do it. We consistently do it," marvels Thorpe. "We'll have a problem and we'll instantly fix it and get back on the line and finish the run. It's just reaction now. We know each other so well, we do exactly the same correction."

Thorpe and Sheer figure it won't take a perfect race to win in Nagano. But it's important that the race LOOKS perfect.

"There are a million things that you can do wrong in the span of 48 seconds," says Thorpe. "You can have an equipment failure, your sled could get dropped. I could break a pole strap at the start and we'd be out of the race. And on the way down the track, the things that can go wrong are even more because there's 14-15 turns and there's an entrance, middle, exit for each turn and there's straightaways between the turns and all it takes is one slip and you're gone. It's that close.

"The person that wins is gonna be the person that makes no mistakes, no visible mistakes. There's always mistakes, but if you see a visible mistake like hitting the wall or having a big skid, you can write that person off. They won't win. So it's gonna have to look like perfection"

Each day during the Olympics, CNN/SI will bring you TNT's Athlete of the Day, a detailed look at the personalities that spice up the Games. Check back every day for a new athlete, and be sure to catch TNT's daily in-depth coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Athletes of the Day

• February 20 - KC Boutiette • February 19 - Alberto Tomba • February 18 - Michelle Kwan • February 17 - Eric Bergoust • February 16 - Todd Lodwick • February 15 - Kirstin Holum • February 14 - Thorpe/Sheer • February 13 - Masahiko Harada • February 12 - Todd Eldredge • February 11 - Elvis Stojko • February 10 - Donna Weinbrecht • February 9 - The Forsbergs • February 8 - Picabo Street • February 7 - Cammi Granato • February 6 - Tommy Moe

Watch TNT's coverage of the Winter Olympics!