Athlete Bios
Skeleton
Gregor Staehli keeps going and going
Last Updated: Saturday, February 6, 2010 | 8:12 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Swiss slider Gregor Staehli won a bronze medal at the 2006 Torino Games. (John D. McHugh/Getty Images)Gregor Staehli of Switzerland celebrated his 41st birthday in Lake Placid, N.Y., in grand fashion by capturing his third skeleton world title in 2009. The first one arrived 15 years earlier in Altenberg, Germany.
"I'm a little bit old," Staehli told The Associated Press after winning. "That's maybe the only thing that's not OK. It would be better to maybe have the 21st."
Along the way, Staehli has retired more than once. But he has always come back and has even talked of competing at the 2014 Olympics, when he will be 46.
Sticking around would allow Staehli to try again for an Olympic gold, one glaring omission from his résumé. Staehli ended with bronze medals in both the 2002 and 2006 Olympics.
After the 2006 Games, Staehli chose to keep competing because the next year's world championships were held in the Swiss resort town of St. Moritz. He captured his second championship there. He did not participate in the 2007-08 season, then returned to regain his title.
Staehli first tried skeleton when his father took him to a track in Austria when he was 19. He won the bronze in the world championship in 1990, his rookie season.
Staehli drifted away from the sport and resumed his education at the University of St. Gallen, finishing his degree in 1998. He returned to skeleton for the 1998-99 season amid optimism that the sport would soon be reinstated as an Olympic competition.
