Samantha Retrosi

Sam Retrosi (born December 12, 1985) is an American luger who competed as at the international level from 2000 to 2007. She competed in the women's singles event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

During her second run at Turin, Retrosi crashed on the Cesana Pariol track when she approached one of the curves at the bottom of the track. Suffering from a concussion and cuts to her left knee and chin, Retrosi was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, then flown to another hospital in Turin for further evaluation. The Saranac Lake, New York native announced her retirement from luge in June 2007.

Samantha is a current doctoral student in sociology at George Mason University. Her PhD research was conducted in the Fall of 2017 in the Peruvian Amazon and is focused upon the therapeutic benefits of ayahuasca as applied to Western participants within the Shipibo healing tradition. Her previous work focused on the political economy of global sport, during which she wrote a piece for The Nation criticising the Olympic Games as a site of globalized exploitation of athletes and host city residents.[1]