BEIJING — You’ll have to forgive Jonny Gustafson if he hugged his sled tightly upon arrival here last week. The last time he flew through the Beijing airport, authorities seized 33 equipment boxes from lugers in several different countries—including the box that contained Gustafson’s sled.
He can laugh about it now. “It’s been an experience, for sure,” he says. But in late November, staring down the possibility of trying to qualify for the Olympics without his equipment, Gustafson tried not to panic.
After the first World Cup of the season, at the Olympic track in Yanqing, lugers began to hear rumors in the airport that not all their luggage had made it onto the plane that the International Luge Federation (FIL) had chartered to ferry them to events.