After I attacked him at our mutual neighbour’s house and begged him to be a Guest Titan, Mark and I talk Olympic fever and, in particular, all things luge. In fact, Mark is one of Britain’s most successful Luge racers, having raced in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City and in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turino. In Salt Lake, he achieved his goal of being the highest ranked finisher from a country without a home track. Proudly self-funded for the majority of his 12 year career, he was told he was too old to pursue a career in luge when he switched from pole vaulting to luge at 21 years of age. Mark is two-time Commonwealth Champion and six-time British Champion. Despite a fracture in his spine in 2001, through hard physical work and a fierce competitive spirit this humble but competitive dynamo overcame all this prior to his two Olympic Games. During his luge career he raced in every World Cup but one -- due to injury -- and all Major Championships, winning Great Britain’s first international Luge gold medal in 2004 in the Lake Placid Nations Cup. The cherry on top of all this awesomeness? Mark just happens to also have been a Marks & Spencer child model. True story.
