January 2005

"Grandma Luge" Sets Sights on Sixth Olympics

When five-time Olympian Anne Abernathy, SOC/BA ’76, attended AU, she had never been involved with competitive athletics and was only interested in her budding career in performing arts. “I didn’t have time for anything else. I wanted to be a singer, specifically a guitar vocalist,” says Abernathy, a native of the Virgin Islands.

That all changed in 1980 when Abernathy, then 27 years old, went to Lake Placid with her friends. "We went to look at the bobsled run, and saw a sign pointing the way to the luge. I didn't even know how to pronounce it. I saw one go by and thought, 'I'd really like to do that.' And that was the way it all began."

Now, as the Athletes International 2004 Olympic Athlete of the Year trains for her sixth Olympics, Abernathy, or “Grandma Luge” as her fellow competitors and fans call her, looks back on a career that is not only filled with great achievements in her sport, but in her personal life as well.

Not only did she overcome the obstacles of ageism (now 51, she is in the Guinness World Book of Records as the oldest woman ever to compete in the Winter Olympic Games,) she has also overcome dozens of injuries suffered in her sport, as well as Hodgkins Disease.

“It was awfully hard to go through chemo and then get up and go work out. There were times I just didn’t want to, but God helped me persevere,” Abernathy says of her battle with cancer in the mid 1980’s.

In 2001, Abernathy was tested again when she crashed her sled at the World Cup Race in Germany. Her crash left her with a massive brain injury and severe memory loss. With the help of brainwave biofeedback treatments, a cutting edge method of therapy, Anne was able to recover in time for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Her recovery was documented by the Discovery Health Channel and their series “Impact, Stories of Survival.”

Abernathy has also been featured on the Today Show, the Tonight Show, Good Morning America, Nike ads, IBM commercials, MSNBC, and various other national and international shows.

In 1992 Abernathy became the first athlete in any Olympics to compete with a camera on board. At the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994, she was the first to create an online diary from the games.

“Grandma Luge” has spent the last several months in Europe racing training for the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy. She will make Olympic history again next year as the first Winter Olympian in her 50s ever to compete. Her fans will be there to cheer her on with the chant they have proudly shouted for years, “Go, go, Grandma!”

To help support Anne, please visit her Web site at: http://www.grandmaluge.com.

-Mary Skinner