Winter Olympics 2010: Royal command performance from oldest swinger in town

By Ian Chadband, in Whistler Published: 6:50PM GMT twenty-four February 2010

Prince charming: Hubertus von Hohenlohe of Mexico in the finish area after nonetheless an additional Olympic downhill Photo: GETTY IMAGES

So we did and we swooned at the time-honoured star of these Winter Olympics.

At 51 and dolled up in the maddest ski fit this side of Acapulco, garishly embellished bandido-style with ammunition belts and guns, we were frequency going to miss the oldest swinger in town, the one-royal Mexico Olympic team, European cocktail star, art photographer and one-time troubadour of Andy Warhol.

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Hubertus tentatively reached the bottom of the hulk slalom among a layer in 78th place and proposed floating kisses to the throng as if he had won the gold. Well, he had knocked about the boys from Pakistan, San Marino and India. Wasn"t that the majority critical thing?

"No, the main thing was seeking good. I won. On inventive impression. Isn"t this the coolest fit ever made? The pattern was my idea. I did it with an Italian engineer in Turin; I call it Mexican Desperado."

There was no interlude him. There never has been. Torvill and Dean were still you do Bolero in Sarajevo the initial time Prince Hubertus competed at a Winter Games. This is his jot down fifth and it would have been some-more had Mexico Olympic chiefs on arise not taken a mount opposite being represented by someone who seemed about as Mexican as apple strudel.

He was innate and did live in the nation for 4 years when his daddy, Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, was using a Volkswagen plant there and mummy, Her Serene Highness Princess Virginia Carolina Theresa Pancrazia Galdina of Fürstenberg, the Fiat heiress, nipped off to turn a B movie star in Europe.

But right away jetting in between his homes in Vienna, the Italian Alps, the Costa del Sol and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, Hubertus has unequivocally turn a seducer adult of the world.

Did I contend playboy? Sorry, your highness. "If I were a playboy, I"d be in St Moritz right now, not on this difficult small mountain fighting it out with the world"s best," he scolded.

Alternatively, he could be you do what he was a couple of weeks ago. "Yes, sharpened a Playboy monthly calendar in the Arlberg with cinema of exposed ski teachers. These English guys on legal holiday there were examination and observant to their wives "Oh darling, if you looked similar to that, I wouldn"t be so sleepy in the evening". The calendar"s unequivocally cool. You should check it out." Er, we will, Hubertus, we will.

Along with the ultimate singular from his band, who suggest wondrously tasteless Europop in the Rock Me Amadeus vein. They used to be called Royal Disaster. "Now it"s Polaroid P," he explained. "As in Polaroid Prince." The name is a reverence to Warhol, with whom he worked for dual years in New York in the Seventies.

"He longed for me to indication for him since he was in to formulating people who were glamorous. I was a king in locale and he pronounced "Ah, you have to come over. You see so cool and young". It was one of the reasons because I became a photographer and artist." Only Hubertus wasn"t important for fifteen minutes; it"s some-more similar to twenty-five years now.

Even prior unimpressed Mexicans right away think a 51 year-old in his fifth Games being means to kick Bode Miller well, the American didn"t finish, did he? is someone value being compared with.

"I"m Renaissance man. Am I wealthy? I do all right. I feel I"m rich in everything. And at 51, I can be a purpose indication for people to do things at an age where they thought it wasn"t possible."

But this is the last Games, surely? "My physique is revelation me to stop. And so is my partner and my mother. I"ve damaged my knee 3 times, my leg and bust my hand. As Michael Jackson says: "This is it"."

What a shame. Some killjoys still spot about the Winter Games being putrescent by Eddie Edwards-style "tourists". They would have hated this hulk slalom with the loose entrance qualifications.

So it was we had a Pakistani who schooled to ski by chubby dual hunger planks onto rubber boots, a desperately delayed Moroccan dubbed the "Couscous Rocket" and a Peruvian-German sixteen year-old with the llama-covered fit revelation Hubertus: "Respect, old man, respect." But the playground would be a ruin of a lot less fun but them all.

"I think we yield colour to the Olympics,"" Hubertus said. ""I"ve had a very, unequivocally engaging and indeterminate life. Strength, hold up and celebrity usually comes out from you do something astonishing so I keep reinventing myself."

Talking of which, may be he unequivocally will be behind after all in Sochi 2014 when he"s 55, reinvented as an athlete. "I will may be do the curling. Take that brush and purify that ice."

All energy to his elegant unconditional arm. Rock Me Hubertus!