Latest news with #IrishLugeFederation
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."
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."
