My time working with the Austrian Luge Federation was brief, in a relative way of thinking. No sooner had I left Innsbruck, Tyrol for good than did the waters of the Inn river--where I had initially stopped to slake my full bladder during my first night there--carry my kidney-filtered Einbeck double-lager to the mighty Danube. A classic example of high-gravity lager traveling north due to a higher-elevation in it's southern origin. So worth it...
The common misconception about this particular short chapter of my life is that I was acting as a representative on behalf of Austria in the International Luge Federation. This almost couldn't be farther from the truth. And, come to think of it... Why people continue to assume this is a tad baffling. I never said anything about the ILF, and I'm not even Austrian (readers of this Thesaurus know well that I am actually from the Ukraine). In addition, I don't have the slightest bit of background in international sport committees. I think many of my readers were getting the wrong idea due to my speaking so fiercly about the flame of Austria's olympic fever when it really hits home around November and the streets become virtually unsafe with uni-bladers, bob-curlers, capricorn sledders and all other manner of semi-employed enthusiasts partaking in the nihilism of un-regulated street-slickery. It was as if the stunt-doubles from Home Alone were given an aquarium full of drambuie and let loose in the streets of downtown Austria with pop-guns and slide whistles. But I digress...
The truth is, there was nothing international about my business with the ALF, I was simply acting as a consultant in an attempt to regulate blade-widths during a time which was notorious for a lack of national standards. Almost like seperate conferences in early American football, half the nation was using the old fashioned luge blades (1.65 cm), and the other half had adapted the international Olympic games standard width (god knows whatever that was... as soon as the whole nation converted to the new widths I was done with luge for good. Adopting the Olympics' wider blades basically made it so that any Hannes, Ludwig, or Roland walking down the street
could jump into the arena and luge at a competetive level. Took all the finesse out of the game...)
This should clear up not only why I don't luge anymore, but how my efforts to keep a higher level of luge-standards in Austria were quelched by the popularity of our national luge teams being able to join the Olympic games. I suppose it should make me less angry that we took the silver and bronze that year...
But it doesn't.
The common misconception about this particular short chapter of my life is that I was acting as a representative on behalf of Austria in the International Luge Federation. This almost couldn't be farther from the truth. And, come to think of it... Why people continue to assume this is a tad baffling. I never said anything about the ILF, and I'm not even Austrian (readers of this Thesaurus know well that I am actually from the Ukraine). In addition, I don't have the slightest bit of background in international sport committees. I think many of my readers were getting the wrong idea due to my speaking so fiercly about the flame of Austria's olympic fever when it really hits home around November and the streets become virtually unsafe with uni-bladers, bob-curlers, capricorn sledders and all other manner of semi-employed enthusiasts partaking in the nihilism of un-regulated street-slickery. It was as if the stunt-doubles from Home Alone were given an aquarium full of drambuie and let loose in the streets of downtown Austria with pop-guns and slide whistles. But I digress...
The truth is, there was nothing international about my business with the ALF, I was simply acting as a consultant in an attempt to regulate blade-widths during a time which was notorious for a lack of national standards. Almost like seperate conferences in early American football, half the nation was using the old fashioned luge blades (1.65 cm), and the other half had adapted the international Olympic games standard width (god knows whatever that was... as soon as the whole nation converted to the new widths I was done with luge for good. Adopting the Olympics' wider blades basically made it so that any Hannes, Ludwig, or Roland walking down the street
could jump into the arena and luge at a competetive level. Took all the finesse out of the game...)This should clear up not only why I don't luge anymore, but how my efforts to keep a higher level of luge-standards in Austria were quelched by the popularity of our national luge teams being able to join the Olympic games. I suppose it should make me less angry that we took the silver and bronze that year...
But it doesn't.
Comments
(ha,remember when people were crazy about Alf?)
thursday and friday this week.