Link to original article: Tageblatt 11 Nov 2021

Translation

A month ago, the 48-year-old left for one last week of intensive training in Altenberg, Germany, where he is expected to contest his last race of the qualifying phase, which will last until mid-February. Then we went to Whistler Mountain, Canada for training and competition preparation. The first races of the “North American Cup” were scheduled there.

The competition in the continental racing series was unusually strong: “Since it is an Olympic year, many nations also use their teams from the Intercontinental Cup in the smaller American series in order to collect as many points as possible and maybe a second or third To secure a starting place ”, explains Jeff Bauer. After the first race on Sunday he was not satisfied: “I’m not so happy because I had a small crash in the sixth corner. But I’m glad that I got back on the sled properly and finished the run normally. ”23rd, 2.59 seconds behind the Austrian winner Alexander Schlintner (53.71 seconds), he left five competitors behind.

In the second race on Monday the curve fit better, but with 1.97 seconds behind the winner of the previous day, he lost one place. “The run was better, but a few too many small mistakes prevented a faster run. The ice is faster than last week in training and I’m still adapting, ”he analyzed afterwards.

Not an easy task on the world’s fastest route at 145 km / h. But all good things come in threes, and on Monday, finishing 19th, he finally qualified for the second round. He was unleashed there in twelfth place, 1.69 and 1.02 seconds behind Canada’s Evan Neufeldt overall -17. and collected first points. The decisive factor was the difficult turn 6, with the fourth in Altenberg the greatest challenge in sledging. Jeff Bauer said: “Last week I crashed hard on my back in practice at the exit of that corner. I trained them well, but I also fell in the first race, which hurt a lot again. In the second race I was still nervous about the corner. In order not to fall, I drove them too hard and lost time. Today I felt ok in the curve. and had a great run. So I ran it on the second run and had a great run. That was a great feeling that I want to take with me into the races next week. ”Then again in Whistler the Intercontinental Cup will be about significantly more points for the dream of the Olympics.

Link to original article  Tageblatt 27 Oct 2021

Translation

Jeff Bauer would be 48 years old at a possible Olympic premiere

A Luxembourgish winter sports enthusiast can hardly be more exotic than Jeff Bauer. The sports with sledges are dominated by a few nations and while the bobsleigh athletes and tobogganists like the Luxembourgers of 1928 and 1936 slide down the ice rink on the very best, the skeleton pilots have been throwing themselves headlong into the games since 2002 (and before that in 1928 and 1948) Ice chute. The sports-crazy former basketball player of the youth national team discovered his passion for this sport late, but has been pursuing his Olympic dream consistently ever since. Since he lived in the Grand Duchy for ten years as a teenager, Jeff Bauer received the Luxembourg nationality in 2018 and established himself as the fastest from the “exotic” countries as 31st at the 2019 and 2021 World Championships. At his Olympic premiere in Beijing he would be 48, but with his commitment, Bauer convinced both the COSL and the FLSG association and is training full-time with the Austrian team this winter. As 57th in the world rankings, he would have just made the criterion of the world’s best 60 last season. Since the skeleton riders will give their colleagues five starting positions in 2022, the ambitious athlete will have to achieve one of only 25 starting positions for a total of 15 nations.