Calgary (pps) „Luge is really more difficult than canoeing“. The guy who said so knows what he is talking about. After all, Imre Pulai earned a gold medal in canoeing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Athens, in 1993 and 2003 he furthermore took four World Championship titles and participated in four Olympic Games. And now the 42-year old athlete intends to qualify for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.
„In canoeing you just need muscles. But in luge it needs much more than that”, explained Hungary’s “athlete of the year 1995” the difference. “You have to keep your wits about you in luge, you need courage and fast reaction times. And some technical skill won’t come amiss either,” Pulai said, even though he had some problems especially with this last issue at the Nations Cup opener in Calgary, Canada. He was disqualified because his sled exceeded the weight limit.
This is why Pulai will give it another try at Innsbruck-Igls to meet the qualifying criteria for his first Olympic Winter Games. By the way, Pulai’s coach is Ioan Apostol, Development Manager within the International Luge Federation, FIL, who participated in Olympic Games for Romania. Thanks to the strong financial support of the international federation, a total of ten nations are being prepared for the 2010 Games in Vancouver in a so-called “FIL Group”.
