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OSLO, NORWAY – German luge champion Helmut Hermann suffered a potentially career ending injury at his hotel room last night, while opening a bottle of Becks beer. With no can opener available, Hermann attempted to open the Becks with his thumbnail. The result-- a lacerated finger tip and fractured bone.
"It's his balancing thumb," explained Helmut's trainer/publicist/mystic guru Gerhard Gunther. "The sport of luge has few requirements. You must fit on the sled and you must have both thumbs." According to Gunther, one's thumbs are a requisite means of maintaining balance. "When you feel yourself tipping over to one side of the luge sled, you stick out your thumb on the opposite side. The slight weight shift keeps you in balance."
A team of emergency technicians attended to the luge star, who was very distraught.
"Will I ever be able to luge again?!" he screamed. The technicians failed to find his fingertip and reality began to set in all too quickly for the German. "Meine thumb is gone. I am dead, I am no longer!!" Hermann could be heard bellowing in unison with the ambulance siren.
Suddenly, he became completely hysterical and bellowed "Ya! Ya! Becks is goot beer!!" over and over, in a futile attempt to squeeze out a last drop from his endorsement deal with the brewer.
Hermann's injury is the fourth of its kind this week in Oslo, a city notorious for its difficult luge courses and horrible hotel service.
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