Knowing their Olympic future and quite possibly their sliding career were at stake, longtime USA Luge doubles partners Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin decided Wednesday was the right time to make a slight strategic change.

"Before, we were sliding like idiots," Martin said. "And today, we actually slid like we knew what we were doing."

With that, they're off to the Vancouver Games, with a chance at making luge history.

Grimmette and Martin defeated Matt Mortensen and Preston Griffall at a race-off in Lillehammer, Norway, on Wednesday to secure their fourth Olympic trip together. Olympic bronze medalists in 1998 and silver medalists at Salt Lake City in 2002, they'll have a chance in February to become the first doubles team to medal in three different decades.

"I do have a good feeling about where we need to go from here," Grimmette said. "We've still got the month of January before the Olympics, so we're going to have to work hard."

Grimmette and Martin had a two-run time of 1 minute, 36.989 seconds. The Mortensen-Griffall time was 1:37.344.

Also heading to the Olympics is Megan Sweeney, who survived a race-off to grab the final women's singles spot on the U.S. team by downing her younger sister Emily Sweeney and Kate Hansen.

"It's definitely a very interesting thing to walk into, knowing that it is so big and at the same time it's really hard because you're racing against your teammates," Megan Sweeney said. "And I didn't only race my teammates, I raced my sister. That right in itself was something that was super hard."

Grimmette _ who'll soon become a five-time Olympian, having made his debut at Lillehammer in 1994 _ and Martin had the fastest time in all three runs. The race-off format called for only the two fastest runs to count toward the total time.

If they hadn't won Wednesday, their Olympic hopes would have been over. And given how this season has gone, it could have easily been the end of their careers as well.

"It's a relief that today is over, but it's a beginning too," Martin said. "We still have work to do and the goal isn't to make the Olympic team. It's to do well at the Olympics."

They have won 65 international medals together, the first of those coming in a World Cup race at Lillehammer in 1996, and there was some thick irony in the fact their career essentially could have ended Wednesday at that same track.

"It crossed my mind," Grimmette acknowledged.

When the race-off was in the books, Grimmette and Martin sounded disappointed for Mortensen and Griffall. "Interteam races are tough," Grimmette said. "We're friends with everybody. We're close most of the time."

For the Sweeney sisters, the dynamic was even tougher to handle.