From the streets of Gleneagle Hill to the international stage, Cochrane speedster Ross Baradoy is heading to the international stage to help bring the sport of street luge to the upcoming Summer Olympic games through the World Roller Games.
Baradoy explained that he moved with his family to Cochrane in 1989, when the population at the time was around 5,300 people. In 1998, when he was watching TV, he learned about the world of street luge.
“I saw an advertisement on TV of some street lugers going down the hill in a Mountain Dew commercial, and I was like; ‘what’s that’?” Baradoy said. “A few weeks later on Fast Forward Magazine, there was a picture of a street luge race in Calgary, and I contacted the person and I asked, 'I want to buy one, how much is it?'”
Similar to the winter sport, street luge involves riders on street luge boards travelling a paved road or course. The biggest difference from winter luge is that each race hosts four racers at the same time, rather than individual racers competing for the fastest time as in the iced version.
After learning it would cost $1,200 for a street luge, Baradoy and his friends created their own makeshift equipment out of skis and skateboard parts instead.
“My mom would drive us up after school up Gleneagle Hill, and we would ride down on basically skis with wheels,” he said. “And I’m talking like old-school, hard wheels, super sketchy, no tracks, and it was completely insane.
“Now that I look back at it, I would not recommend anyone do any of the things I did. Here in Switzerland, two weeks ago, one of my Swiss teammates, was downhill skateboarding on an open mountain pass, and she died because she was riding unsafe.”
Baradoy has stayed with the sport for past 26 years since he started. After joining the European Racing Circuit in 2006 for downhill skateboarding, he eventually moved to Switzerland.
In 2017, Baradoy tried to challenge the Guinness Book of World Record’s speed challenge in Quebec. Although he couldn’t beat the 163 km/h record at the time, Baradoy still managed to reach 154 km/h before crashing.
Currently, Baradoy will be attending the World Roller Games in Italy which are taking place from Sept. 6 to 22.
In terms of street luge, the World Roller Games will host the event in Pescara, Italy. Baradoy said while he is out on the track, he will be facing speeds around 95 km/h.
“You might find that fast, but that’s actually very slow,” Baradoy said. “Some races you can go up to 110 km/h, and the road is not actually super exciting, but when you have three other riders on the hill, then it becomes interesting.”
He views the race in Pescada this coming Saturday as more of a draft race, rather than a technical one that relies more on turns.
“We’re all riding together, and we’re passing and drafting each other,” he said. “But there are rules on passing, you can squeeze people out [and] you can have the right of way, but once someone passes you by 50 per cent, you can’t squeeze them out.”
Baradoy said he feels confident going into the race, and he believes that he can podium at the event this year.
He explained that this event is attended by the Olympic Committee, which selects sports that will be chosen as events in the upcoming Olympic Games.
“So, the Olympic Committee will come and they’ll look at your sport, your papers, and they’ll look at how you qualify,” he explained. “They look at all the administration, drug doping, […] so it’s one step below the Olympics basically, but if some sports get selected, then they’ll be moved up to the Olympics as a test.”
Following the test, if street luge is well-received and gets good responses, Baradoy explained that it would hopefully be officially added to the roster of sports for the next Summer Olympics.
In closing, Baradoy said he would like to give a special thanks to Hunterwood Technologies who helped make his first handlebars, which he still has to this day.
“They made my handlebars,” he recalls, “The CEO, I remember I went there, we bent the handlebars. I was racing that luge for like 20 or 30 years, and the handlebars were made in Cochrane, and I still have the luge here.”
He adds that this speaks to the international reach that Cochrane has.
“It goes to show that people who are from Cochrane, they go all around the world,” he said. “There’s still a piece of me that’s in Cochrane, and I fondly look back to my memories and that that it’s a beautiful place.”
