Ohhhhh the pain.....
Now I have played competitive hockey all my life, and I have been crunched something silly, and of course, I have dished it out, but nothing compares to the hits I took during my skeleton school in Park City Utah and my first race in Lake Placid. The pictures will prove my story (battered and bruised).
School lasted four days and to obtain my licence, I had to slide 3 times from the Junior start on day 1, 3 times from the Ladies start on day 2, and 3 runs from the top on day 3 and 3 more runs from the top on day 4 but you only needed 5 runs from the top to successfully pass the course. Well by day 2, after 6 runs, I called my coach back in Ottawa, totally discouraged and fully wrapped in ice bags that the Spanish speaking maids at the hotel helped tie on me with spare towels looking at me like a coco-loco, and asked my coach why he didn't warn me that this was such a traumatic and impact type of sport. I found it strange on the first day that people showed up with hockey shoulder pads and elbow pads.....it wasn't strange after the 1st run.....it was self explanatory!! Needless to say, I didn't wear any padding at all, except for my Helly Hansen fleece, for my 11 runs (didn't want to do the 12th and didn't need to ha ha). The joke of the week was I always volunteered to go first.....to soften up the walls for everyone else!!
That was Park City...when I explained to my teacher, at the end of the school, what my goal and intentions were....and he realized that the only race I could start qualifying for was in two weeks and in Lake Placid, considered a highly technical course...he pretty much took out the rosary beads, said a few hail Marys, and told me not to do it, that I may get hurt.....like the school didn't do that already.
Well, I'm living the dream, so off to Lake Placid we go....he was right!! I got my true skeleton banged around something fierce but after a few practice runs, and official runs...some on my back, I was ready to race!! For a new guy on the scene, in the start house with gold medalists like Jim Shea, and expected to finish last...or not finsh at all, I ended up having two respectable races finishing 29th out of 37 sliders on the Saturday and 34th out of 37 sliders on the Sunday (I blew a tire in turn 14 that slowed me down considerably). A race actually means two races, usually one on Saturday and one on Sunday, and for males, if you finish in the top 25 after the first run, you get a second run. Even though I didn't get a second run in either race, I was very pleased as I had beaten out athletes that had been sliding for years......and it only took me 'till March to fully heal!!
School lasted four days and to obtain my licence, I had to slide 3 times from the Junior start on day 1, 3 times from the Ladies start on day 2, and 3 runs from the top on day 3 and 3 more runs from the top on day 4 but you only needed 5 runs from the top to successfully pass the course. Well by day 2, after 6 runs, I called my coach back in Ottawa, totally discouraged and fully wrapped in ice bags that the Spanish speaking maids at the hotel helped tie on me with spare towels looking at me like a coco-loco, and asked my coach why he didn't warn me that this was such a traumatic and impact type of sport. I found it strange on the first day that people showed up with hockey shoulder pads and elbow pads.....it wasn't strange after the 1st run.....it was self explanatory!! Needless to say, I didn't wear any padding at all, except for my Helly Hansen fleece, for my 11 runs (didn't want to do the 12th and didn't need to ha ha). The joke of the week was I always volunteered to go first.....to soften up the walls for everyone else!!
That was Park City...when I explained to my teacher, at the end of the school, what my goal and intentions were....and he realized that the only race I could start qualifying for was in two weeks and in Lake Placid, considered a highly technical course...he pretty much took out the rosary beads, said a few hail Marys, and told me not to do it, that I may get hurt.....like the school didn't do that already.
Well, I'm living the dream, so off to Lake Placid we go....he was right!! I got my true skeleton banged around something fierce but after a few practice runs, and official runs...some on my back, I was ready to race!! For a new guy on the scene, in the start house with gold medalists like Jim Shea, and expected to finish last...or not finsh at all, I ended up having two respectable races finishing 29th out of 37 sliders on the Saturday and 34th out of 37 sliders on the Sunday (I blew a tire in turn 14 that slowed me down considerably). A race actually means two races, usually one on Saturday and one on Sunday, and for males, if you finish in the top 25 after the first run, you get a second run. Even though I didn't get a second run in either race, I was very pleased as I had beaten out athletes that had been sliding for years......and it only took me 'till March to fully heal!!
posted by Demetrios "Dee" Stefanopoulos at 11:28 PM
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