BORMIO, Italy, Feb 6 : Ireland’s Cormac Comerford was first hooked on Alpine skiing when he attended an open day at a dry slope looking out over Dublin Bay.
The 29-year-old Olympic downhill debutant has come a long way from Kilternan as he prepares to follow the best in the world down Bormio’s fearsome Stelvio Piste for Saturday’s opening speed race, the first of four disciplines Comerford hopes to compete in.
To get this far, after three previous attempts came to nothing, has not come easy.
Thanks to strong support from his local ski club, the mechanical engineer raised 3,000 euros ($3,537.60) in 48 hours with a crowd-funding appeal to pay for the safety equipment – including airbag and cut-resistant underwear – required on the Olympic stage.
“I needed a bit of extra help to be able to fund those,” he told Reuters as he prepared for the “first serious downhill” of his career.
“I got a really good response. It was amazing, and I got a lot of support from home… I’m so grateful to them; they’ve been a massive support this season.”
A minor crash on his first training run on Wednesday triggered the airbag, incurring more expense to reset it.
“It’s not something you want to go off, but yeah, I’m grateful that it does work. And yeah, it probably saved me a few bruises,” he said.
“I’ve never skied a slope like this before. It’s more the thought of it,” he said when asked about starting hut nerves. “That’s worse than the actual run itself.”
Comerford, one of four Irish skiers at the Games, has also teamed up with others from small, non-snow nations during the season in a private team based in Austria.
“We pool our resources, we have a coach, physio, a chef, and there’s a guy from Greece, Armenia, Guinea-Bissau, who’s racing here at the Olympics,” he said.
“So it’s a big mix of nations, but together we’re able to make a really high-performance team and really push our level up because we don’t have the same kind of support or experience in our own countries. So with the knowledge we have, we can really do a lot.”
Comerford credited Shane O’Connor, who raced for Ireland at the 2010 Games in Vancouver and is now a coach at his ski club in Ireland, for inspiration.
“That’s when the seed was really planted. And yeah, I held on to that. And I’ve been at a really high level. I’ve made the minimum standard four times now. So yeah, I have the level. It was just a matter of time before I made it,” he said.
“It’s an honour and a pleasure to be racing on such a prestigious slope, and to do it coming from Ireland is extra special.”
($1 = 0.8480 euros)
(Writing by Alan Baldwin in Cortina d’Ampezzo, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
