Georg Hackl - Luge

Because I have a natural need for movement, sports still plays an important role for me after my competitive sports career. I really need to be able to get out into the great outdoors. In the winter I like to go ski touring or hit the slopes. I’ve always enjoyed mountain biking and hiking in the mountains in summer, but now, with the invention of the e-mountain bike, this has become an even greater and almost limitless pleasure.

I have a number of role models. Just off the top of my head, I can think of an example of someone with a very unusual resume. This is a person who has made it from the most basic circumstances to the highest levels of science. I’m talking about Hartmut Graßl, one of the most renowned climate researchers of our times. He was born on an isolated farm in the small mountain village of Ramsau, not far from where I grew up. I am familiar with his story because he went to the village school with my father in the 1940s, when it was normal for five primary school classes to be taught together in a single room by just one teacher. My father told me that Graßl was already known for his extraordinary intelligence back then. Today, Graßl presents scientific proof that the climate is changing due to human influence, and in what ways and how quickly. He provides detailed information and explains why it is so important to curb this process and how we can make it work. Generally speaking, I always consider role models to be people who have achieved great things in their lives, but who have also in some way made some significant contribution to the well-being or progress of humankind.

We only have this one planet Earth, which is unique and special in that life exists here in the rich diversity we see all around us. We humans have reached such an advanced stage of development that we are fully capable of destroying or inflicting long-term damage on our natural surroundings. That is why it is important to me that humanity takes this responsibility seriously and treats the resources that the Earth provides us with respectfully, through conservation, increased efficiency and technological progress, so that future generations can experience a world that is just as beautiful as ours is and so that they can be proud of us and not condemn us!