Latest news with #Desmond
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
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."
The Irish Sun
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
‘My family always knew I would go to Winter Olympics' – Irish star Elsa Desmond reveals sacrifices behind luge stardom
OLDER readers will remember the Remington TV ad from the 1980s in which Victor Kiam said: 'I was so impressed with the shaver, I bought the company.' Elsa Desmond, 27, went one better than the late entrepreneur. She liked her sport so much she founded the national federation. Advertisement 3 Else Desmond at the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin ahead of the final qualification phase for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games next February Credit: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile 3 Winter Olympic athletes, back row, from left, Sean McAnuff, Liam O'Brien, Cormac Comerford, with front row, from left, Elle Murphy, Elsa Desmond and Thomas Maloney Westgaard Credit: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile 3 Sean McAnuff, Liam O'Brien, Cormac Comerford, Elle Murphy, Elsa Desmond and Thomas Maloney Westgaard, with guests, form left, Chef de Mission Nancy Chillingworth, The Italian Irish Chamber of Commerce General Secretary Fabio Pietrobon, Italy Ambassador to Ireland Nicola Faganello, OFI President Lochlann Walsh, OFI CEO Peter Sherrard and Dr Una May Credit: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile Desmond — who was born and bred in Winter Olympics — But being at the Milano Cortina Games next year would be a case of it turning full circle for the doctor based in Akureyri, northern Because it was when the Games were last in She was eight when she decided hurtling down a track at up to 140kph lying feet-first, face-up on a sled was for her. Desmond said: 'Italy would be huge, partly because I was inspired by an Olympics in Italy and I remember watching those Games. Advertisement Read More on Winter Olympics 'There were no Irish women . There were also no British women, so there was no one there that I felt represented me, so I decided I would do it. 'And now the idea that there might be an Irish child the same age I was, watching and seeing me, would be really a dream come true. '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.' Advertisement Most read in Other Sports She puts the confident nature of that prediction down, in part, to being surrounded by Olympic rowers as her dad Brendan was a cox. But she could have chosen an easier path, with nobody quite sure how she could realise her ambition. Meet snowboarding's Mia Brookes - the metal-loving record-breaking champ targeting Winter Olympics gold Desmond recalled: 'I was told no, so I did other things. 'I did water polo. Advertisement 'I enjoyed all these other sports, but none of them quite clicked. 'And every year we would continue to email Ireland and GB and see if there was any way for me to get on a sled and every year they'd say 'no', so I'd continue with my other sports.' With no track in either country, her first experience came in Innsbruck, Austria , having convinced the British Army to allow her join in on their trip. Desmond recalled: 'It was all these adult men and me, this teenage girl, and I was faster than all of them. Advertisement 'I think they thought I was a pain in the a**. 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!' COUNTRY GIRL Desmond competed for Britain at the 2019 World Championships before deciding to switch allegiance to Ireland. She explained: 'They had a change of coaching staff, which just really didn't work for me and I'd always had dual citizenship. 'I'd initially started with Britain just because they had a federation and Ireland didn't. Advertisement 'I decided to move across and there was no one within Ireland that knew anything about this and we didn't know what we were doing either.' When emails to the Olympic Federation of Ireland went unanswered, a number was sourced for CEO Peter Sherrard. She recalled: 'We never got a response because he gets so many emails like that from parents thinking that their child will do it. 'My mum managed to get a phone number for Peter and said, 'My daughter wants to go to the Olympics for you'. And he said, 'OK, fine'. And then she had to say, 'Actually no, my daughter will, she will'. And he always remembers that, he was telling me about it in Beijing. Advertisement 'But they did all make it clear from day one that I wouldn't be funded, I would be doing this on my own and if I could get myself to the Olympics, they would, of course, support me from there. 'But to get there, I'd have to qualify myself.' 'There's a big language barrier but you have to have a coach on paper so without them helping me out, I wouldn't have made this race.' That was, in part, because there was no national federation in existence through which funding could be channelled which prompted Desmond, then aged 19, and her family to go about setting one up. She admitted: 'It was definitely a bigger challenge than I realised. We first had to establish ourselves as a company. Advertisement 'We also had to get the federation recognised by the 'We ended up sending a lot of forms into the IOC and the International Luge Federation, but then they would say, no, this isn't right, reject this, go back, change it, come back. 'So it was a lot of trial and error. There were a lot of mistakes made. 'We were able to get the company side of it easier because we had some experience through friends and family with that. Advertisement 'It was the federation side that was a steep learning curve. '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. We almost weren't able to do that first race in the European Championships that I wanted, but we managed to sort of get things sorted.' Her dad Brendan is the chair, her mother Martha the treasurer, with Elsa both the Junior and Development Program Director and its only senior athlete. It was all made worthwhile when — on a two-day bus trip from Latvia to Germany — she got a call to say she had qualified for Beijing. Advertisement Normally, that call would go to a coach but she does not have one, relying on the Ukrainian team to plug the hole at the World Championships in Canada in February. She said: 'I just shot them an email and said, 'I don't have a coach, please can you help me?' and they said, 'Yeah'. 'There's a big language barrier but you have to have a coach on paper so without them helping me out, I wouldn't have made this race.' CHANGE OF SCENE Whatever about her Ukrainian, her Icelandic is coming along, having decided to quit Britain for a country where her work can more easily sit alongside her passion. Advertisement Desmond said: 'I'm an emergency medicine doctor and I was working in the NHS , which for many reasons is an incredibly tough environment. 'I know many of my colleagues who have chosen to leave the NHS for similar reasons. 'That just speaks for itself in what an environment it is to work in. 'I was working 60 or 70 hours a week and my pay was quite minimal, 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. Advertisement 'I'm not feeling like I'm burnt out and it's also more sustainable for me financially.' Still, choices have to be made. She is weighing up whether to sell her car so she can buy a custom-built sled at a cost of around €20,000. Not your usual trade-in. Desmond shrugged: 'I mean, I'll be away for all of winter, so it won't be a huge problem and then luckily where I live in the north of Iceland , buses are free, so I can manage to get to work on the bus or cycle and find a way around it if I have to.'
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
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.'
Irish Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Meet Elsa Desmond - Ireland's luge star who refused to give up on Olympic dream
Very few people would go to the extreme of setting up a national sports federation to pursue their Olympic dream. That's exactly what Elsa Desmond did when she was 19, setting up the Irish Luge Federation after a long and then intensive period of lobbying the Olympic Federation of Ireland. From there it took almost two years for her to be allowed to race internationally. Her big ambition was to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games in Milan-Cortina next February yet she squeezed into the 2022 Games in Beijing. "I'd had this sort of 48 hours of being utterly miserable because we thought I wasn't in," she explained. Desmond was travelling in a minibus from Sigulda in Latvia to Oberhof in Germany, a two-day journey of the kind that the smaller competing nations take as a matter of course on the circuit, when Ireland's chef de mission Nancy Chillingworth phoned her. "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'," Desmond recalled. "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. Then I remember her hanging up and I just cried for about 10 minutes before I was even able to call my mom." Desmond has always lived a life less ordinary. She was raised in a family surrounded by Olympic rowers in Buckingham. Her father had competed internationally and her mother was an elite swimmer. "I didn't think being an Olympic gold medallist was that big a deal until I got older because so many of them were my family and friends, it's just something I grew up around," she said. Desmond fell in love with luge while watching the 2006 Torino Olympics. "I knew from then that it was what I wanted to do," said the 27-year-old, who qualifies for Ireland through her grandparents from Cork and Cavan. "Then I got on the sled as a teenager and there was no going back. My life has never been the easy path, so this just made sense." Luge riders speed down a slippery ice track, relying on reflexes for steering - and with no protection. "The danger wasn't really something I considered," Desmond reflected. "I always just thought Luge was this beautiful sport because it's a mix of power and precision. "Unlike bobsleigh and skeleton, where you can hit a wall and still win an Olympic medal, you can't do that in Luge. It requires perfect, and I always thought there was beauty in that." But there are no luge tracks in Britain and Ireland and so the first time Desmond got on a track was after extensive requests to accompany the British military to Innsbruck in Austria. "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," she said. And if it had gone badly? "Knowing myself, I think I would have persevered for a while, to be sure that I was terrible at it," Desmond smiled. "But it's one of those sports you need a natural ability to start with. I've seen so many people who are naturally athletic, but you put them on a sled and they're useless. "You'd never know which way it's going to go with luge. But we started with me from a very low start height, I only did sort of five or six corners on that first run. "My speeds weren't very high but I didn't crash particularly more than anyone else that week. 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!" Still on the board of the Irish Luge Federation and also coaching Lily Cooke and Finnian Zimmerman, who are up and coming athletes, Desmond is also an emergency medicine doctor. She left behind the stress of life in the NHS system for a job in Akureyri, in northern Iceland, where she works half the hours for double the pay and that allows her to focus on her training. Now ranked 28th in the world - she was 54th going to Beijing and finished in 33rd place - Desmond makes her life as a luge athlete work despite the obstacles in terms of funding and resources. In Beijing she used a junior beginner sled and now, in the process of sourcing a new senior standard racing sled, she is looking at a €20,000 price tag. "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," she said. That the next Games will be in Italy, where this journey began for her, is what everything is building towards for Desmond. "Italy would be huge, partly because I was inspired by an Olympics in Italy," she said. "I watched the women's event, and there were no Irish women. There were also no British women, so there was no one there that I felt represented me. So I decided I would do it. "And now the idea that there might be an Irish child the same age I was watching and seeing me would be really a dream come true."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Doba Warns of Job Scam Impersonating Its Brand via Fake Websites and Social Media Ads
LEHI, Utah, May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Doba, a leading U.S.-based dropshipping platform, has issued a public warning following confirmed reports of an online scam impersonating its brand. The scam involves fake job postings on social media platforms and a fraudulent website — — which falsely claims to represent Doba in an effort to deceive job seekers around the world. The scam was brought to Doba's attention through two detailed reports from individuals in Australia and Pakistan. In both cases, victims were contacted through informal channels such as Facebook ads, WhatsApp messages, and personal Gmail accounts. Applicants were directed to register on a website that closely mimicked the style of Doba's official platform but was not affiliated with the company in any way. Victims were asked to complete "training tasks" using shared login credentials and were ultimately encouraged to deposit funds to unlock access to tasks or commissions — a hallmark tactic of job fraud schemes. "We take these impersonation attempts very seriously," said a spokesperson for Doba. "Our official website is and we do not recruit through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or non-verified job boards. We never ask job applicants to deposit money, use shared accounts, or perform unpaid tasks." One victim was added to a WhatsApp group titled "Sweetheart," managed by individuals using the names "Sophia" and "Desmond," who claimed to be Doba representatives. These tactics are part of a growing pattern of phishing-style job scams that have surged globally, often targeting international applicants with promises of fast income and remote work flexibility. What to Watch For: Any job posting directing users to to use an "employee ID" to log into a third-party sitePromises of commissions or bonuses for completing tasks upfrontMessaging via WhatsApp, Facebook pages like "AirHire Recruitment," or non-Doba emails (e.g., Gmail or Outlook) Doba encourages individuals to report suspicious activity to help@ and avoid engaging with any website or person that does not originate from an official @ address. How to Report: Report fraudulent Facebook ads and pages to MetaReport phishing websites like to Google Safe BrowsingShare any screenshots or emails with Doba's security team The company is currently working with relevant platforms to report and shut down the fraudulent sites and accounts. Doba urges job seekers to remain vigilant and verify all offers through official channels. View original content: SOURCE Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
