Thursday, February 18, 2010

Petra Fan Club Roll Call


It's no secret that we are doing our best to spread the gospel of Petra far and wide over here. And it shouldn't be very hard -- let's face it, if you can't get behind a late-blooming, camera-mugging, amazonian classic-sprinting freak from non-traditional ski nation, you might not have a soul. Don't forget that this woman ascribes her recent ascent to the status of all-around elite skier to "having fun" and "being relaxed" in the last two seasons, an ethos that many a weekend warrior should be able to identify with. Compare that to, say, Marit Bjoergen, who would undoubtedly credit her two medals (and terrible last 3 seasons, I might add) to mercilessly (over)training herself into the ground.

Well, in the last 24 hours, Petra went from nordic-famous to world-famous with her tree smashing antics. In case you've been living under a rock, or received a head injury this afternoon, here's how it went down:
Petra decides to test the structural integrity of the blue barriers, anticipating the need to crush a small Norwegian against one during heats.
The barrier gives way quite easily, so Petra calmly heads into the ditch in search of a harder object for her Scandinavian-squashing needs.
About 3m below the trail she finally locates an object firm enough to crush a doping Finn upon. To make sure it's up to the task, she breaks 4 ribs and punctures a lung on the tree. It's ok, she's got like, 20 more ribs.

Then she went to the hospital, because even Petra Majdic would rather race with two lungs.

Then she came back and won a bronze medal.

Then she got back into her wheelchair, because she broke 4 ribs and punctured a lung.

Respect, Petra. Respect.

Completely irrelevant side note, now that I have your attention and enthusiasm: In the process of writing the Final Climb Wattage post, I looked up Petra's weight, and she is alleged to be 5'10" and 143 lbs. Having seen her in person and on TV, I have real trouble believing that she is only an inch taller than me and actually weighs less than I do. I'm pretty sure she's 6-foot-13 and 170lbs of pure double-poling power. Can anyone else confirm this?

6 comments:

Kuan said...

You don't need lungs for sprints do you? Just hold your breath and allow the anaerobic phosphate system to do its thing. Petra's just a freak in that she can keep it going for 30 minutes! LOL!

Christopher Tassava said...

How do you say "HTFU" in Slovene?

Luke S said...

If Lindsey Vonn is 165, Petra has gotta be at least that. Props for the punctured lung.

Nat Herz said...

Yeah, actually, this was one of the most surprising things about meeting her in person. I assumed the same, and on the way to Canmore we stayed with a guy who's waxing for the Slovenian team and knows the athletes. He told us that Petra wasn't actually all that big, but I still didn't believe her. But actually seeing her in person up close--we interviewed her in Canmore--it's true! She has really big, broad shoulders, but is actually pretty skinny, and not exceptionally tall. We have tried to figure out why she seems so big--I think it's because she has a narrow face that sits on her broad shoulders, and kind of skews your perspective a bit. But yeah, much slighter and smaller than expected...

Anonymous said...

Seeing Majdic take a bronze medal after the fall she had has to be one of the most inspiring story's of thi years Olympics.
In i situation were i probably would have curled up and cried for my mommy she went out proved she has to be one of the thogfest pepole out there.

I just hope it dosn`t end her career and that she continues on at least to the 2011 worlds in Oslo were hopefully she can get her well deserved gold medal,

Lars

Unknown said...

Petra is a real princess o Olympic Games of 2010. Let`s do something for Her.