Delaney: Former lugers remember

An actor, an astronaut, an attorney and three businessmen.

Competing in luge apparently prepares a person for a variety of career choices. Erin Hamlin has something to look forward to after her sliding days are done.

Five USA Luge Honorary Olympic Team Captains spoke on a USA Luge conference call Wednesday afternoon and all will be at the Olympics next week.

"It's going to be U.S. (medal) sweep," joked Scott Parazynski, M.D., an emergency medicine trained astronaut who is the only person to have walked in space and climbed Mount Everest.

Actor Eric Mabius, currently playing Daniel Meade on the ABC TV series Ugly Betty, and attorney Ray Ocampo, who was the one-man Filipino Olympic luge team coached by Parazynski in 1988, were also on the call.

"It's more complicated and difficult than I thought it was," said Ocampo, who had dreams of being a U.S. Olympic marathon runner before an Achilles tendon injury. "You have to be strong enough to relax on the sled and relax as your zooming along."

Parazynski did not make the U.S. Olympic luge team in 1988 and then devoted himself to medicine. He has been on five Space Shuttle missions and seven space walks.

Mabius, whose show was recently canceled by ABC, was a member of the U.S. Junior National Team for three years before switching to acting.

"It's very hard to describe because it is so subtle and requires such finesse," Mabius said. "You're not going to see someone tighten a muscle group to steer at 96 miles per hour."