3 days ago
Elsa Desmond willing to sacrifice car to fuel 2026 Winter Olympic dream
In a world that can sometimes allow one to muddle along in a haze of ifs, buts and maybes, Elsa Desmond seems to pierce through that cloud in a refreshingly direct manner when it comes to why she is where she is and where she wants to get to.
Three-and-a-half years ago, the Buckinghamshire-born 'Flying doctor' first entered public consciousness on these shores.
She was about to embark on her first Winter Olympics representing Ireland in Beijing. And that's in a discipline that didn't have an existing federation in Ireland until she came along and made it happen.
That sport was the luge. If you think bobsleigh or the skeleton, you're halfway there, only the luge is on a sled where the athlete lies on their back and negotiates the track at speeds of up to 140 kilometres per hour. So not for the faint-hearted and as Desmond tells RTÉ Sport, "an incredibly whole body sport" that requires intense S&C training from calves to neck as well as spatial awareness.
Not that that has ever put Desmond off.
She first fell in love with luge after seeing it on TV during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and quickly set about getting her first sled and embarking on the path towards becoming an Olympian, starting with a first experience where she tagged along with the British army as a civilian to take on a track in Innsbruck, Austria.
Needless to say she was a natural in that sink or swim scenario.
"It was all these adult men and me, this teenage girl, and I was faster than all of them. And I just fell in love with it from that first run."
And thus the dream of going to an Olympics was fuelled.
"My family knew from a very young age that I was going to get to the Olympics for luge. I don't think they believed it until I was on the plane to Beijing, but they always knew," Desmond says matter-of-factly as the Iceland-based luger returned to Ireland this week, as preparations for next February's 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina ramp up.
The 27-year-old had initially begun on the British scene but as a dual citizen, explored the possibility of representing Ireland, who she qualifies for via Cavan and Cork roots on her father's side.
A phone call from her mother to Peter Sherrard, Chief Executive of the Olympic Federation of Ireland got the snowball rolling but there was one major obstacle. There was no national luge federation in Ireland. So at the age of 19, Desmond set about founding one.
"It was definitely a bigger challenge than I realised," she says of a process that involved setting up the Meath-based Irish Luge Federation as a company with a board and a CEO, and earning recognition from the International Olympic Committee, Irish Olympic Committee and the International Luge Federation.
"In total it took us between 18 months and two years from when we started to when I was able to race, and it was down to the wire."
Initially though, she thought she had very narrowly missed out on the 35th and final qualification spot for the 2022 Winter Games.
But then whilst on a two-day bus journey with the rest of the Small Nations team, came a phonecall from Team Ireland's Chef de Mission for both Beijing 2022 and next year in Milan, Nancy Chillingworth.
"I'd had this sort of 48 hours of being utterly miserable because we thought I wasn't in," Desmond recalls.
"And then I was on the minibus on my way from Sigulda in Latvia to Oberhof in Germany and I remember sitting in the front seat and Nancy calling me.
"She said, 'I'd normally ring your coach but since you don't have one, I'll tell you, you've qualified for the Olympics'.
"And I think I may have made her say it three or four times because I just didn't believe her. I really didn't think that that was possible.
"And then I remember her hanging up and I just cried for about ten minutes before I was even able to call my mom."
So she had made history as the first Irish luger at an Olympics. But the 2022 Games were really treated as a learning experience where she finished 33rd in the women's singles.
Next year has always been her real target and she is well on track to qualify, she tells RTÉ Sport.
However, major sacrifices have to be made. In her debut Olympics, she was using a modified standard junior sled. It would be exaggerating to say it would be like trying to compete in Formula One whilst driving a Ford Cortina but you get the picture.
'I might have to sell my car in autumn to be able to afford this new equipment'
But for the Milano Cortina Games she's haggling to upgrade to a senior standard racing sled via a German technician. It could end up costing as much as €20,000. So something's got to give.
"I might have to sell my car in autumn to be able to afford this new equipment and if I have to do that, I have to do that, it'll be worth it," Desmond says.
If that's not a sign of dedication, it would be hard to find a clearer example. Even though she has a busy life working as an emergency medicine doctor in northern Iceland, she reasons that sacrificing her main mode of non-sporting travel "won't be a huge problem" due to the availability of free bus transport and the fact that she will be away training for long periods.
The decision to move to Iceland in the first place was a case of not sitting around and simply accepting the strain of employment within the UK's National Health Service (NHS) which she describes as "an incredibly tough environment to work in at the moment".
"I was working 60 or 70 hours a week and my pay was quite minimal, so I decided to leave the UK and Iceland seemed like a really good option," Desmond says.
"I now work about 36 hours a week for double the pay, which allows me a lot more time to focus on my training and also for my mental health as well, I'm not feeling like I'm burnt out, I'm able to put the effort that I want into the areas of my life that I want it. And it's also more sustainable for me financially."
The extra mental space and spare time is filled with Icelandic language lessons, running the federation and coaching the next generation of Irish lugers including Lily Cooke.
But the big focus is building towards the 2026 Winter Games on Italian soil, the same country that same host nation that offered her a first glimpse of the luge two decades earlier.
"The real aim had always been Italy," Desmond says.
"We're looking in a good place. So the last Olympics I was ranked 54th overall in the world in that season for the World Cup, and I'm now sitting in 28th in the world."
