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February 13, 2006
Understatement of the year
You're 47, you work hard to qualify for the Olympics one last time, and when you finally make it, your country declines to send you to the Olympics as a one-man team. What do you have to say for yourself? If you're Hubertus von Hohenlohe, you'd say it was "really annoying."
Von Hohenlohe, if you can believe this, is a Mexican citizen residing in Europe who spent the past few years qualifying for the Olympics. When he eventually earned qualification, Mexico decided to not send him to the Olympics. Now that's a kick in the pants! But I love the way that instead of getting fired up, he calls Mexico's decision "really annoying." Classic!
For 20 years, Hubertus von Hohenlohe has been one of the most colorful figures at the Winter Olympics. But now his dream of skiing for Mexico in the Torino Games at the age of 47 looks to have been denied.
Hubertus von Hohenlohe has raced in the downhill, super-G, giant slalom and slalom at world championships over the years. Dating back to 1993, he has finished anywhere from 38th to 76th.
The descendant of a dethroned royal family from a former principality in what is now Germany, von Hohenlohe, who is also a photographer and a pop singer known as "Andy Himalaya," first skied for Mexico at the 1984 Games in Sarajevo.
This season he has been pounding the slopes on the World Cup circuit as he successfully gained enough points to qualify for the Games which open on Friday. The problem is that he is the only Mexican to have qualified and the Mexican Olympic Committee decided against sending him as a one-man team.
"I've been training for three years for this, I've got my qualification points and then they tell me a few days before the Games that they aren't going to send a team, it is really annoying," von Hohenlohe said.
Posted by oz115 at February 13, 2006 10:26 AM