USA Luge's men's program looks to the future after Beijing

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.

USA Luge’s Chris Mazdzer had X-rays on his aching right foot a few days ago, and the results were as expected. It’s still broken.

With that, it became official: The U.S. men’s luge team was never fully healthy at any point this season.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM

There were no medals for Americans in any major international men’s luge event in this Olympic year, and now all three sliders who represented the U.S. at the Beijing Games — Mazdzer, Tucker West and Jonny Gustafson — are contemplating their futures.

Mazdzer is strongly leaning toward retirement after four Olympic appearances, West needs time to figure out if he wants to keep going and Gustafson hasn’t definitively said that he’ll do another four years leading into the 2026 Olympics.

"I’ll have to go back and really do some soul-searching and make that decision," said West, a three-time Olympian. "I’m 26 now, which is still young in sport years, but four years adds four years to that age and then you’re getting kind of old. We’ll see."

The roster is going to change, especially with Mazdzer planning to step away. West wants to see other changes as well.

There is a high-tech element to sliding. Sled design is critical, especially in luge with race times measured to the thousandth of a second. And West believes the U.S. has fallen behind. The results make that tough to argue: Mazdzer was 2.642 seconds behind Olympic champion Johannes Ludwig of Germany after four runs in Beijing, West 3.625 seconds back and Gustafson 5.211 seconds off the pace.

In the real world, a couple of seconds isn't much. In luge, that's forever.

Tucker West, of the United States, prepares