Why Am I Still Alive Pt. 17: The Third Time I Met Katarina Witt

In Torino, while working for NBC for the 2006 Olympics, I found myself late one evening in one of the host hotel lobbies with a few characters from my past - Wilf O’Reilly - former world champion in short track and commentator for BBC, Jeroen Otter - my former coach and now head coach of the Dutch team, and, oddly, Paul Hedrick, father of 5-time Olympic medalist in long track speedskating Chad Hedrick. The bar was closed but Wilf and Paul were helping themselves to the beer taps. I was about to head to my lodgings when things went a little south.

The closed bar we were in was blocked off with an approximately 100 lb metal barrier which we had all, soberly, skirted, hours earlier. Paul is a large man, and during our conversation, he had gotten up to stagger over to the men's room. Well, in the process, Paul knocked into the barrier, and it fell over with a sound like a car wreck - 150 lbs of steel rattling against tile in the hush of the hotel hallway. The racket was unbelievable, and as one side of it was slightly convex, it rattled back and forth for many seconds.

(Picture: Wilf O'Reilly and Paul Hedrick & the infamous barrier)

Like a shot, the hotel proprietor was out, and weirdly, out of the blackness, dozens of heads popped up. It seemed that the night manager was letting tourists with no place to stay to crash on the couches in the lobby overnight for a small tip - there were probably 20 people sprawled about in the tiny lobby - all of them now, awake and frightened. Things were turned a bit strange.

It got weirder. Paul tried to lift the barrier, but couldn't by himself, making quite a loud noise himself with his grunting, so Wilf and I helped him and finally got it into standing position again.

Just as we got it back vertical and in place a voice emerged from the stairwell above, hissing. All we could see were naked feet, bare legs, and gathered to either side of them, the fringe of a fur coat. The upper body was blocked by the staircase. The woman hissed again and we turned,  "Ssssss… Vat ist going on! Vat ist all de noise?!". Wilf explained calmly - "just knocked something over ma’am - sorry for the trouble." For a moment she bent down to give us a look and our eyes locked for a moment. I had an immediate dejavu. I knew that face.

She gave an "Ach! You!" and turned with a huff and stomped back up the stairs. "That!," I said, with a dawning realization, starting to laugh, "that voice sounded familiar." "Was that...?" "Was that..?"

"Yes," smirked Wilf, and joined me laughing. "That," he said, "Was Katarina Witt - and she's pissed at you!" and threw his head back to howl with laughter