3 days ago
Elsa Desmond: 'I might have to sell my car in the autumn, it'll be worth it'
Elsa Desmond was just eight years old when she turned on the telly and found herself captivated by the sight of people launching themselves down an ice tube at what turned out to be the Winter Olympics in the Italian Alps.
The sport was luge and she was hooked.
The good news was that sport was already in her blood. Her dad Brendan once coxed an eight to victory at Henley. Her mum Martha is still a good enough swimmer to be competitive at Masters meets. And young Elsa had an open mind.
She played hockey, rugby and water polo, and she threw hammer and tried gymnastics, but Berkshire wasn't exactly a hotbed for winter sports. There were no luge tracks in the UK, or in Ireland where her grandparents had come from.
The saying goes that if girls 'can't see then they can't be' when it comes to sport. Desmond couldn't spot anyone wearing British or Irish gear that day in Turin in 2006. And it just made her think how cool it would be to change that.
Years of emails followed to the Olympic federations on both sides of the Irish Sea, and she was already 16 when the decade of badgering everyone and anyone finally paid off with an invite to tag along on a British Army sporting expedition to Europe.
'I think they thought I was a pain in the ass. Like, I've been trying to get on that camp for years and I think they finally thought, 'right, let her have a go and then she'll leave us alone'. And that unfortunately didn't happen.'
She started off from a low height, her speeds weren't frightening, and she only completed five or six corners on the first run. Baby steps, but the teenager didn't crash any more than anyone else. If anything, she stood out for all the right reasons. The wait had been worth it.
That was it. She was up and running.
Desmond has seen some impressive athletes try luge and fail but athleticism is very much a key ingredient. Luge isn't skeleton or bobsleigh, you can't career off a wall and still win an Olympic medal, and she saw the beauty in that.
Spatial awareness is non-negotiable, and an ability to think quickly while travelling at anything up to 140 kilometres an hour. Resilience is the key, not least due to the inevitable crashes and the ice burn and the bruises that follow.
Those are challenges and traits that plenty of Olympic athletes will recognise and be able to tick off their list. Desmond? She has faced obstacles off the track that would have cowed most people and brought this love affair to an end long ago.
It was a change of coaching setup that prompted the move from Team GB to Ireland. The major problem with that was, well, Ireland didn't have a luge federation. If she wanted to wear green on the global stage then it was up to her to create one.
She was 19.
There were five boxes to tick: establish a company at Company House, and then a sporting federation. After that, recognition from the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI), the International Olympic Committee and the International Luge Federation (FIL).
An Argentinian athlete's parent provided some guidance, so did some friends in the FIL. Her mother's background in human resources came in handy too, but it was a steep learning curve and almost two years in the making.
'It was a lot of trial and error,' she laughs. 'There were a lot of mistakes made.' That was eight years ago. The ultimate goal was the 2026 Games in Milan Cortina but this wait wasn't as long. Beijing in 2022 wasn't really on the agenda but she crept in under the qualifying criteria and the call from the OFI to confirm it is one she will never forget.
'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 10 minutes before I was even able to call my mom.' She would be Ireland's first luge athlete at an Olympic Games.
Desmond had answered her phone that day while sitting on a bus that would take 48 hours to get from one venue to the next. The bigger nations fly. Smaller nations like Ireland, with one or two athletes, rough it and club together to make things work.
That Desmond was the one contacted and not a coach was another point of difference. Normal procedure is for the OFI to inform the coach first. She didn't have one. This is a singular and at times lonely path. And an expensive one with it.
The sled she used at the Beijing Olympics came, more or less, from off the shelf via a manufacturer on the open market. It was, to be blunt, a junior beginner's sled modified as much as it could be to get the job done.
Now she is working with a German technician to get a proper spec sled that 'could be a complete game-changer' in her career, but they don't come cheap. The final bill might creep up as high as €20,000.
Sacrifices, more of them, might be needed.
'We're trying to see what we can lease and what we can buy and I'm working with a technician to try to bring the price down… 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.'
There seems to be no obstacle that can stop this woman of so many parts and so much drive. Currently 26 places higher in the rankings than when she qualified for Beijing, the 2026 Games are well within her sights.
Still only 27, Desmond is also the junior development program director for the Irish Luge Federation and she has served as the coach to Lily Cooke who became Ireland's first ever luge competitor at a Youth Olympics last year.
Even that isn't everything. The only winter sports representative on the OFI's athlete commission, she was wise enough to recognise her limitations when quitting a brutally tough role as an emergency medicine doctor with the NHS in Southend.
Home now is the town of Akureyri at the base of Eyjafjörður Fjord in northern Iceland where she works a similar role for 36 hours a week instead of 70 and for twice the pay. The ultimate aim in her medical career is to be an air medic.
This is someone who doesn't like heights and flying, but then she already rips down ice chutes while lying back on a small sled at frightening speeds, and learns Icelandic in her spare time while interfacing with patients there in a critical role.
Spinning plates is just what she does.
'It's certainly not easy. I have so many lists stuck up all over my computer, you would not believe it, just trying to keep track of everything that has to be done every summer and preparing for the winter.'
