Sometimes I think we’ve got it bad – ESPN dropped us, nobody knows what we do, kids rather skateboard than rollerblade bla bla bla.. the usual “low-self esteem” griping rollerbladers seem so keen on harping on about nowadays. Then I’m reminded of Abdil aka Furlong and his solo journey in bringing street luge into the mainstream.
Lets face it, rolling holds nothing compared to the problems lugers face. Like us, they too were dropped by ESPN too, but waaayyy back in the early days after 1-2 outings in the mid-90s. I’m not all to familiar with the international luging scene, but I’m guessing they took the snub pretty like men, then went on doing what needed to be done – going out and just ride.
Our boy Furlong too faces the same if not more difficult circumstances, being the ONLY street luger in Malaysia (though he has since recruited a few die hards to join him) isn’t just tough, its downright impossible without the right attitude.
Thankfully, the boy has a good head on his shoulders, though somewhat brash at times and downright arrogant when it comes to defending his passion, you’ve gotta hand it to him, being the only practitioner of a sport in Malaysia isn’t easy. Especially when its a sport that requires not only a support car (and willing friends) to guide you on roads but trips to the mountainous backbone of Peninsular Malaysia just to train. To make matters worse Malaysian drivers aren’t known for their courtesy or defensive driving, and a leatherbound speedfreak lying on his back navigating windy, sporadically tarred roads is just a target ripe for tyre fodder.
But here’s the good part, things seem to be looking up for Furlong, winning the Newton’s Playground competition in Australia recently (first Asian to win an ISGA event to boot) not only got him serious publicity mileage in the local press but also gave him a much needed confidence boost.
His next challenge: bringing a major IGSA sanctioned street luge event into Malaysia. No easy task no doubt, but with the help of the locals (Wheel_Love will be giving him a hand putting the event together) and support from his international gravity fueled athlete buddies things look set to go.
Best of luck buddy, ride hard. More info on Furlong and his latest activities visit his site at www.teamhardcorepavement.com.
Here are some pictures I took of Furlong on his practice runs at Janda Baik.
^Getting suited up
^Starting off
-sukeats
Haha tell em like it is bro! Anyway, just wanted to correct you about how long street luge was featured in the X-Games. It’s not 1-2 outings like you said, it was actually more than that. Street luge made its debut in the 1995 Extreme Games in Providence, Rhode Island. That was the very first games, and Extreme Games was shortened to the more marketable name of X-Games in 1996.
Street luge was governed by a now-dead sanctioning body called RAIL during the 1995 and 1996 X-Games. In 1997, IGSA took over the job and got the contract to sanction the sport in the X-Games. So street luge continued to be featured in 1997 all the way to 2001. It was finally dropped in 2002.
So yeah, street luge was in the X-Games from 1995-2001, a total of 7 years.