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Jeff Bauer, in the footsteps of the only Luxembourg skeletoneur
Mental!

He is the only Luxemburgish skeleton practitioner, this sport where a athletes hurtle down an icy track, head forward, at more than 130km / h. After missing the Olympics in 2018, Jeff Bauer (46) participated in the world championships at the start of the year and is embarking on a new season this winter with several goals.
His family history and the sport he practices are two curiosities that make Jeff Bauer a character totally apart in the Luxembourg sports landscape. Became officially a citizen of the Grand Duchy in June 2018, it was in a red, white and sky blue combination that the American by birth took part in last March at the world skeleton championships in Whistler, the center of sliding sports which hosted the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
From the United States to Luxembourg
Ranked 31st out of 33 competitors, Jeff Bauer finished far from the Latvian Martins Dukurs crowned world champion. Never mind, his victory is elsewhere… Because to understand how Jeff Bauer came to represent Luxembourg in skeleton competitions, you must first go back in time. We are in the Second World War, and Jeff’s GI grandfather is fighting alongside thousands of other Allied soldiers to liberate Europe from the Nazi yoke.
Once the conflict ended, he returned to the United States, before returning to Luxembourg in the 1950s to work for Goodyear in Colmar-Berg. Same thing for Jeff’s father, who studied in Luxembourg in his youth, before returning to the United States… then making his comeback in the Grand Duchy, in order to work for the American tire giant too. Jeff’s father therefore left Akron, Ohio in the early 1980s and took little Jeff, who was only 6 years old, with him. Jeff Bauer lived in Luxembourg until 1991 and even played for the national basketball team on several occasions.
“I met all the citizenship criteria, it was just missing a signature from the Ministry of Justice to validate the procedure, I don’t know why but this signature took a long time to arrive …”
Having left for the United States, he remains particularly attached to the country in which he grew up and where three generations of his family – soon four since his nephew will come to study in Luxembourg – lived. In 2018, Jeff Bauer wanted to participate in the Pyeongchang Olympics and represent Luxembourg, but because of administrative red tape, he did not obtain Luxembourg nationality in time.  But it’s a thing of the past now, I can participate in the world championships and represent Luxembourg.

”Luxembourg obviously does not have facilities to practice skeleton, it is in Park City (Utah), where he lives, that Jeff Bauer trains on the track which hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002. Last year, its winter season was punctuated with some great performances, such as an eighth place during the North American Cup at the end of November in Lake Placid, the first American city to have hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932.

This winter, after an Intercontinental Cup race in Sochi (21st of 23), Jeff is back in New York State at the end of November to compete in two races. “I went to Russia to learn and get to know the track better. ”But training since October 14 and with the start of his season on the very technical track of Königssee in Germany, the skeletoneur believes that his current physical condition is far from optimal, and judges that he is in great need of rest:
“I need a little break, my body has given a lot in recent months, I only had five days of rest. I’ll give myself a few days off before I go back to physical exercise because my head and body need it. ”
Jeff has in any case set himself the main goals this winter, particularly in terms of improving his start, a crucial phase: “I want to know more tracks and gain experience. I want to progress at the level of my sliding, but also at the level of the starts, in particular the sprint. If I can improve all these aspects, I will be a better athlete. ”
After a few well-deserved rest days, Jeff Bauer resumed competition on December 8 on the Lake Placid ice: “I’m a little nervous because in Sochi the level was really high (laughs). I chose to race in competitions of a higher level than last year, to raise my level. That will help me.