Olympic Sidebar

[kevin_standlee]

This afternoon, the NBC Olympic coverage presumably ran out of things to cover, so they filled most of the last hour with a documentary called "Mercury of the Mountains" about Italian bobsled champion Eugenio Monti. Among the most famous story involves the 1964 games, when a bolt broke on the sled of Great Britain's Tony Nash and Robin Dixon, and they found they had no spare. Monti said, "Have your mechanic meet my sled at the bottom after my run. I'll let you have a bolt off my sled; I won't need it after that." And he did -- and the GBR sled won the gold. What great sportsmanship! Monti did eventually get his gold in 1968.

A side note mentioned in this story that I did not know: the 1960 games in Squaw Valley were so underfunded that they didn't build a bobsled run. Sheesh!

I'd point people to the video, but I can't find it on the NBC Olympics site, and a Google search for the title turns up nothing. I expect that if there ends of being some sort of Olympic memory DVD set, this will be one of the "extra features" on it.

Comments

Monti Bobsledder Italy

[(Anonymous)]

This was a great story of a simple man, with great love and passion directed towards not only being a champion, but being a good human being while doing so. I think the express, spoken tributes by his many competitors speaks volumes. There should be more people like him.