Wednesday, January 30, 2002
He's goin' for gold again
Written off by many, Lueders is peaking at just the right time
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
It's been a long time since he thought of himself as Lucky Pierre. Almost four years.
But it was a happy-go-lucky Pierre Lueders who came home to Edmonton yesterday, suddenly a legitimate medal threat again, just in the nick of time before the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games.
"Lots of people had written me off. But all of a sudden I've gone from being a bum to a contender again.''
Lueders came home to say more than hello to mom and dad with a smile on his face instead of the long face he had back at Christmas. He's also home on bobsled business.
"It's a project with my runners,'' he said. "It's very much a clandestine operation. The runners are absolutely critical. You're not going to go fast in a race car if the tires are bad. The runners I make in Edmonton are as good or better than anything in Europe. It's my own design. I have great people here who do the machining and the heat testing and all that stuff.''
Lueders, the two-man bobsled gold medal winner at the Nagano Olympics four years ago, finally won another World Cup two-man race two weekends ago in Italy and was back on the podium this past weekend in France.
TRACK START RECORDS
Canada 1 broke track start records at both events. But what you didn't read were the numbers.
"I don't know why the press didn't pick up on it, but after breaking the track record in Cortina, what we did to the track start record in LaPlange was absolutely amazing. We absolutely destroyed the start record. We broke the record by 5/100ths of a second over the first 50 metres.
"That may not sound like much, but it's just ridiculous. To blast it like that ...
"I was there in 1995 when Christoph Langen set it,'' he said of the seven-time world champion. "I thought that was just about the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
"We haven't broke a track start record since Dave MacEachern and I did it in '98 at the Olympics in Nagano.
"And I'll make a prediction right now. We'll break it at the Olympics in Salt Lake!''
Suddenly Lueders really likes the Salt Lake track.
"It's short. There's going to be a real emphasis on the start because it is so short. The key will be the first six turns. It flattens out after that and there's not much you can make up.''
So how is it that Pierre Lueders, after three years of not, is now hot?
Two words.
Giulio Zardo.
"He's 21 years old out of Montreal. And he's been sliding with our other pilot,'' said Lueders of the Canada 2 crew.
Lueders is thrilled with the kid. It's two-man bobsled, he said. There's no one-man bobsled event.
"It was just a matter of getting the right brakeman,'' he said of finally finding the pusher to replace MacEachern.
"We needed World Cup medals to go into the Olympics for our own mental state. Getting the start was the missing piece of the puzzle.''
Lueders said he's going to Salt Lake as one of six pilots he thinks can win it.
"There are two Germans, two Swiss, one American and now, once again, one Canadian!''
And it's about the American. Pilot Todd Hays lost his brakeman to a positive drug test the other day. So who knows with him?
All Lueders knows is that he thinks the black cloud which has been following him around everywhere has finally lifted.
"It's been three years of hell,'' he said.
A 1,000-POUND WEIGHT
"When we won that Cortina race it was like a 1,000-pound weight off my back. Considering where I've been the last few years, this is feeling very good to me right now. It's been hard to get here. But it's 16 days until we race in Salt Lake and I think we're pretty much ready to go now.''
Lueders is putting no pressure on himself to duplicate his two-man gold from Nagano.
"I've won a gold medal. My dad says if I don't win another one, so what. But I'm going to Salt Lake just like I went to Nagano. Any medal would be fantastic. If we win gold, great. If we win silver, great. If we win bronze, great. To be in the top three with a young brakeman like Giulio, I couldn't be disappointed.''
Lueders says Salt Lake isn't going to be the finish line. He thinks he can have a great ride with his new partner.
"Absolutely I'm going for another four years after this. I'm 31. For sure I have another Olympics in me.
"I'm looking for four more good years instead of one good year and the rest crap,'' he said of this Olympic quadrennial.
Especially if these Edmonton-made Pierre Lueders-designed runners give him an edge.
"It's top secret. If I tell you anything more than what I've already told you, I'd have to kill you.''
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