Family, friends and probably even complete strangers gathered Monday to watch Southern California's Kate Hansen make her Olympics debut in luge.
Supporters are invited to her family's Los Gringos Locos restaurant in La Canada for this week's viewing parties.
"(Family members) say they keep getting all these people coming up to them and wishing me good luck -- people we don't even know," Hansen said. "It's just overwhelming support."
The best wishes include a billboard towering over Foothill Boulevard that read, "Congratulations Kate! Go for Gold!" It features Hansen speeding down a luge course.
Hansen, who has been involved in luge since she was 10, is coming off a training accident in October in which she broke her foot. Despite the injury, she went on to win the USA Luge National Championship with a cast on her foot.
The Sochi Games mark the La Canada High School graduate's first Olympics. Hansen was 10th after Run 2 -- one of three U.S. competitors in the top-15.
