The Silver Bullet

The luge is the strangest sport around. Not that I’ve thought about all the sports around, but, hurtling yourself down a really hard, super twisty ice hill at speeds over 80mph is just insanity. And not only that, but you’re lying down, on your back, in a position where you can’t really see where you’re going all that well.

Then there’s the commentators telling me that the competitors need to relax and absorb the bumps in the track to go faster. Are you kidding me? Relax and go limp at 85 mph? I can’t even do that when I’m riding as a passenger in a car going that fast on a twisty mountain road. With a seat belt and an air bag in really good weather where there’s some security that I’m not about to die.

And Armin Zoeggeler of Italy is the craziest of them all. Not because he goes the fastest, not because he won the gold medal, not because he crashed during practice and continued to compete… but because of his super shiny silver helmet. What in the world is this man thinking? Doesn’t he have someone in his life to tell him it was a bad idea?

I want to rip that helmet right off of his head.

What’s the reason for that ugly, gaudy thing anyway? He’s a gold medalist. He got one last year. NOT that I want the helmet to be gold. That would be worse. That would be like the gold running shoes of that track star guy… whatever his name is. Why can’t he have a nice black one? Something normal. All the other lugers at least understand that if they die flying down that hill, at least they won’t die in a really awful shiny silver helmet.

End Blog.