The Biggest Luger

Well, what more appropriate a time than now for the above title, the night when yet another adored reality television program, based solely on the exploitation of its contestants has its finale. Well for now at least. No doubt the bigwigs at channel seven are already trawling the country for another bunch of insecure, overweight people for people to gawk at and feel good because "Hey man I'm not as big a boombalada (and yes, that is the official spelling) as that guy". Yes, it's the insecure securing the other insecure, if you follow me.

Anyhoo, it's easy to be negative so let the class begin. The man you see gracing the cover of this edition is none other than Venezuela's premier luge pilot, Werner Hoeger. Yes, I was confused as well at first, because you don't meet a great deal of Latin Americans with names that would seem more at home at a reunion of the 5th Panzer Division than on the front page of the evening edition of 'El Mundo'. But here's the kicker to this whole shebang (thanks Ben Gibbard), he was born in Venezuela to an Austrian mother and German father and grew up in Merida. He got a scholarship to a university in the U.S. where he completed his PhD. at the age of 24. He now is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Boise State University, but it gets better.

From 1970-1975 he was the reigning Venezuelan national all-around gymnastics champion. He didn't actually take up luging until 8 years ago, when he was 44. No your eyes don't deceive you dear readers, 44! Most people are content to file away most of their sporting dreams by that age, excluding those wonderful people who partake in such "low impact" pastimes such as darts, croquet, lawn bowls, chess, shooting, sailing, golf... um errrr, perhaps the opening stanza of this sentence was a little inaccurate. I'm concerned because a lot of guys the wrong side of 50 have trouble operating an automobile 60 km/h and this bloke tearing down a sheer ice track at a squllion miles an hour. Lets not for forget that he's doing this wearing figure hugging lycra (shudder). In any event, he cracked it fo 32nd place out of 36 competitors at Turin 2006, not too shabby at all.

My last word for you Werner is even if you don't qualify for the next winter olympics you will still be able to get in cheap as a spectator when you present your pensioners card.

For more information on famous Werners visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Klemperer

and

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-bio.html

Hoogaaannnn!!