Yanqing, China, Feb 4 (AFP\/APP):When Elsa Desmond decided to quit the Great Britain team to race for Ireland and pursue her dream of competing at the Winter Olympics, there was a problem — Ireland did not have a luge federation.<\/p>\n
So she set one up.
\nLuge first captivated her imagination as an eight-year-old watching the 2006 Winter Games from Turin on TV.<\/p>\n
Desmond, now 24, fell for the high-speed sport on ice.
\n“I liked the combination of speed, skill and power,” she told AFP at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre.<\/p>\n
“I was a nervous kid, but I saw the (luge) athletes, who looked so confident. I wanted to be like that.”
\nAlthough born in Buckinghamshire in southern England, Desmond switched from the Great Britain team to Ireland in 2018, qualifying through her grandparents.<\/p>\n
She will be Ireland’s flag-bearer in Friday’s opening ceremony in Beijing.
\n“When I left GB, we had no idea what we were doing,” she said of her efforts which resulted in her founding the Irish Luge Federation in 2020.<\/p>\n
“We had to start a company in Ireland, so we are a registered corporation there, it was a lot of work — I had no idea what it was going to be like.<\/p>\n
“90 percent of the work has been me, it has been a steep learning curve.
\n“I don’t regret it for a second, because my career changed once I had the ability to control where I wanted to race.”<\/p>\n
The rules prevent her becoming federation president, so her father Brendan has the honorary role.<\/p>\n
She estimates that over the last six seasons she has spent around 50,000 pounds ($67,000) on the sport from her own funds, subsidies and donations from her family.<\/p>\n
Desmond graduated as a doctor last year and works in general surgery at Southend hospital in Essex.<\/p>\n
She describes starting her career during the Covid pandemic as “brutal, really hard”.<\/p>\n
“As a newly qualified doctor, I went straight into an NHS (National Health Service) which is at full capacity”.<\/p>\n
She is grateful for the four months leave that her hospital gave her to prepare for the Beijing Olympics, “otherwise I wouldn’t be here”.
\nBalancing long work hours with luge training often meant burning the midnight oil.<\/p>\n
“We work a lot of hours. I get up early and stay up late, I use my days off and I don’t have much social life,” she admits.<\/p>\n
Her dream of competing at a Winter Olympics will finally come true when the women’s heats start Monday, but five days later she will return to work at the hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yanqing, China, Feb 4 (AFP\/APP):When Elsa Desmond decided to quit the Great Britain team to race for Ireland and pursue her dream of competing at the Winter Olympics, there was a problem — Ireland did not have a luge federation. So she set one up. […]<\/p>\n
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