(August 16, 2026) – For our second athlete profile of 2026 (and the 51st in the “Getting to Know…” series) we chat with American skeleton athlete Nick Tucker. Nick has been a regular on the IBSF World Cup tour for the last season and a half and is entering his fourth season in international competition. We sat down and talked after a round of golf on the Lake Placid Club’s Mountain Course earlier this summer.
Slider: Nick Tucker
Team: USA Skeleton
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Home track: Lake Placid
Sponsors: DMS Sign Connection Inc | Nulo Pet Food | Mid Atlantic Retina Specialist | J&J Trash Service Inc | Project Push to Gold | Vagus | Under Armour
As always, first question: What’s your favorite track and why?
On tour? Or in the world? Because in the world it’s Lake Placid, but I say “on tour” because North America hasn’t had a World Cup race in a few years now. So on tour right now? Altenberg. I love it because it’s like a Lake Placid in Europe. It’s so technical but if you get it just perfect, which happens for me rarely, but when you do it right it feels really good!
As far as Altenberg being a European Lake Placid, what from Placid translates?
People are scared of it. Going into it people are nervous about sliding there, and I think for me…sure I’m nervous everywhere I go, but when I see my competitors more nervous than me it gives me a step up on the competition. I thrive when something’s uncomfortable so when I see other people uncomfortable I feel like I’ve got a leg up.
Unrelated to the track, what’s your favorite town to visit on tour?
I love Cortina d’Ampezzo, and I love Innsbruck. Innsbruck I went to a lot when I was first starting off, but Cortina, there’s something romantic about it. It’s a small town…I went to the Olympics as a fan and it was awesome. I stayed with Kelly [Curtis] and her family, they graciously let me stay there for free. And in my room there was this little foot-by-foot box of a window and you open up the window at night and the track was lit the entire time, and it lit up the sky. So Cortina, just because of how personal and romantic it is, and you can walk and get coffee and walk right to the track.
Favorite place to visit that has nothing to do with the sport?
St. John in the Virgin Islands! My parents have a place on the island, but I haven’t been in four or five years. But they’ve got a place there and if you ever get a chance to go…all the beaches are these little nooks so you don’t really see anyone. It’s just nice and beachy and this small non-commercial beach in the Caribbean.
There’s a place called the Soggy Dollar Bar, you take a little catamaran out there…it’s a wet dock. So it’s called the Soggy Dollar Bar because you park your boat and then you have to swim like 100 meters to the land. You drink all day, then by time you get back to the boat your wallet’s all wet and everything, and that’s how it got its name!
What is your race day routine like between the time you wake up and the time you push off?
Say that the race is at 9:00 AM local time…and that needs to change. We need later races! But for 9:00 AM races, parc fermé is at 8:15. It’ll take me about 40 minutes to get warmed up, about ten minutes to change. Honestly, I’ll wake up around 4:30 or 5:00 AM just to get my appetite going, do some light mobility stretching and try to relax a little bit. Mostly so I’m not rushing around, because if I get like that I’m a bit of a headcase.
I try not to think much before. I don’t want to say I overthink, but there’s a lot going on upstairs! I try to stay busy but relaxed before the race and make sure I can eat.
What do you eat before a race?
Yogurt, oats…try to get carbohydrates and protein and maybe some fruit.
Music, what do you do?
I started this new thing…I don’t have a set playlist, but I have a mood. It depends on the mood, but the one thing I tried during the second of the half of the season which was cool was walking to the line with headphones in. And really that last song, which would be “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)”, that is usually my walk to the line song. But I try to stay away from music because I’m already high energy and in your face, so I don’t use any caffeine anymore and I stay away from music unless I’m walking to the line.
It allows me control my breathing a little bit. Say I’m listening to Limp Bizkit and I’m out an hour and a half before the race, my heart is going to be at 130 bpm and I’m ready to run through a wall. And that’s the brakeman mentality but then I also have to drive the sled. So I try to keep the heartrate low until it’s time to go.
Tell us about your pets
My parents are divorced, but we have animals on both sides!
On my dad’s side we have three golden retrievers, where they actually breed them as well. And a fun fact, one of those dogs was one of my sponsors for the season. They sold one of the dogs, and that money partially funded my season.
There’s Lollipop, Skittles and Butterscotch on my dad’s side. Then on my mom’s side there’s Bently and Brodie, a yellow lab and a chocolate lab.
I love dogs, I love everything about dogs. I honestly don’t know what we’ve done as humans to deserve this companionship. So I’ve had nothing but labs and golden retrievers.
You’re one of the folks on tour dating someone else on tour, what’s that like?
It’s very professional. She takes care of her business, I take care of mine. We communicate, we know each other’s goals. We sometimes know what each other needs, but I think that’s what makes a relationship. But our relationship is very different in-season than out of season. But I think that’s anyone in this situation. But it’s otherwise quite professional!
And she’s got a dog too!
Bounty! I think she…no, I know she loves Bounty more than I think she loves me. But if you knew Bounty you’d also agree! But everyone loves Bounty!
How did you get into skeleton?
It was 2021 and I was living in Baltimore, Maryland at the time. I was working for FedEx Express and living with a couple of my buddies. And I was watching the Tokyo Games…COVID had happened and that’d moved me to working remote with FedEx Express.
I was watching the Tokyo Games and I was wondering “Where did I lose passion in myself?” And it was like 2:00 AM and I was watching rowing, fencing, and I think sailing. And I was like “You know, I don’t know any of these athletes but I know what country they wear on their chest.” And it made me wonder what sports were out there that I could potentially do?
For me, my competitive advantage is sprinting. So okay, I’m not running track and field at the age of 26. I knew bobsled from “Cool Runnings” but you look at the bobsled athletes and they’re 6’5” 230 lbs. And I was 170 lbs running distance, but it was a chance to potentially represent the country.
So this was on a Monday, I looked up summer and winter Olympic sports on a Tuesday. Found skeleton and they had a tryout in Park City on that Saturday, so four days later. My dad used to work in the ski industry and lived out by Park City, if anything I’ll go out and check out the area. My friend John Hoyle actually funded my trip to Park City, and I flew out and fell 100 points short of what USABS! But I got to see Park City anyway.
Then a couple of months later Justin Olsen called me up and said “Hey, we want to invite you out for a push camp, we think there’s some potential in you.” I was in Ocean City, Maryland when I got the call and was with John, so that was kind of cool timing. I think I finished fifth in the push competition, got close with Eric Bernotas and talked about goals and what I wanted as an athlete. I ended up selling everything I had in Maryland and moved up to Lake Placid and I’ve lived out of the training center. Because if you hang around a barbershop long enough you’re going to get a haircut, right? So if I want to be a better skeleton athlete I should move to Lake Placid!
Each summer I’ve dedicated 100% of my time to getting better as an athlete and I love doing it. I live a healthier lifestyle and am competing at a high clip with help from coaches and nutritionists and everyone this early in my career. If I continue to not be ignorant and continue to listen to those around me I can keep progressing and improving. I’m happier, I’m healthier, I’m with the woman of my dreams and really I’m ready to kick some ass this quad!
When you’re off in the summertime, what are you doing with your time?
I try to play golf! I love golf. Am I good at golf, no? But that’s a different story. So I golf a lot, I’ll train six days a week but if I have an active recovery or something I’ll come out and golf. The Lake Placid Club here allows the athletes to play for free with a small cart fee. There’s no way I could play as much as I do without the support of them!
There’s also a lot of the mental side of golf that I think rolls over into skeleton. Skeleton is so frustrating, but so is golf! Say you have a great drive in golf, say you have a great push in skeleton…you’ve got Corner 1 right ahead of you, you’ve got an iron shot right ahead of you. You shank the iron or miss the corner and you have to let it go and leave it behind you. Sure, think about it, reflect, and move on!
Who do you get out and golf with?
Josh Williamson, one of the bobsled athletes. Then Zack DiGregorio from luge, he’s probably one of the worse golf athletes up here. Vasek Cervenka from biathlon, Kristen Bujnowski from bobsled, Alex Ivanov will come out when he’s in town, Campbell Wright from biathlon…bunch of people will come out!
I probably play more golf now than I ever have, which is hilarious because someone’s going to read this and be like “It sounds like he’s 58 and retired!” But nope! I’m 30, in my prime, and playing golf at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday! Chase your dreams!
How do you explain what you do to other people?
It depends on where I am. If I’m at a bar I just tell people “I push a sled” and they’re really not that interested, so I won’t dive in. But if it’s someone that I think wants to have an intellectual conversation then I’ll be like “do you know bobsled?” and 99% of the time they know “Cool Runnings” and then I tell them I do that but face first. Then they’ll tell me I’m crazy, I’ll ask them what they do and they’ll be like “I’m an accountant” and I’ll be like “Isn’t it April?” they’ll say yes and I’ll tell them that they’re crazy!
The best is when someone is like “So you’re training for something in four years?” and I’ll be like “Yeah…but you’re working full time and do you have a five year plan?” and really what’s the difference? I’m just training for something that’s about four minutes of glory!
But there’s something beautiful of it, right? Am I going to touch it someday? I think so. But that’s the belief and the hope…they say it’s the hope that gets you killed! Because I got rocked this season, but it was an Olympic season and it was my first full season on World Cup so what did I expect? I was pumped every week to compete against the Axl Jungks and Christopher Grotheers and Matt Westons of the world. It’s kind of like you’re super dehydrated and are trying to tread water and it’s like “I love what I’m doing but sometimes not really!” But that’s what’s been pretty cool about it!
What’s the hardest thing you’ve experienced in the sport?
Trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong at a world class level. There’s so many athletes and coaches that I respect, and they’ve had so many different experiences, but it’s taken them eight to 12 years to get to that. And I don’t have that long, I started the sport late so I’m trying to do something where the learning curve is a little steeper. So trying to decipher what is right and what is wrong, and who it is I want to listen to and look toward for guidance. And there’s a couple Americans I look toward for guidance, but there’s some Europeans as well. Samy Maier has helped me out a ton just talking in the start house.
I was sick for the two weeks before Sigulda, so I took the minimum number of training runs before the race. My buddy Charlie Volker, he’s a brakeman so he doesn’t see anything. He goes “Sigulda is the carnival ride where it’s all mirrors, it’s called The Latvian Funhouse ™”. But Samy was super helpful and I got a signed bib from him…it’s okay to fanboy your peers but he knows I’m coming for him!
On the other side, what’s been your best experience you’ve had in sliding?
I’m going to get emotional about this…but celebrating with my family has been the coolest part. Like there hasn’t been much success, it brings my families together. My mom and stepdad do a lot of travel on tour. My dad is up watching races at 3:00 AM, like who is doing that? Ken Childs and my father. Sport had really brought our family together. My brother played football at Coastal Carolina and that brought the family together, and now skeleton is doing the same thing and it’s just pretty cool.