Not the Latvian from Taxi
A stereotype from the Baltics, our first note of Latvians was a role made famous by Andy Kaufman.
In 1989 that prejudice ended.
It started with a phone call late at night from by best friend Chuck, the (then) manager of the velodrome in Indianapolis. I was the racing director and coach there.
Chuck: “Hey Rog. What d’ya know about Latvia?”
Me: “Not much aside from the TV Show”
Chuck: “You ever hear about any riders from there?”
Me: “Nope”
Chuck: “Well I just got a call from the Mayor who just was contacted by the Latvian counsel. Seems there’s a couple riders coming from Latvia, one’s the Junior World Champion and they want to train here with your sprint group.” (at that time I had stable of sprinters including a couple Olympic medalists a World Champion, and a few other super fast riders).
Me:”I don’t know the guy but if he’s Junior World Champ; bring him on he’s welcome to train with us.”
Chuck: “Okaaaaay… I guess I could put them up in my extra room.”
Me: “Two? Still OK” We like any kind of fast riders.
Couple days later the Mayor gave Chuck some kind of award. A way to thank Chuck for keeping diplomacy of Indy in good with Latvia…
Weeks later.
Chuck: “Hey those Latvian guys are arriving tomorrow morning and there’s a group of our volunteers that want to welcome them. You want to be there?”
Me: “When?”
Chuck: “about 3am”
Me: “I’ll just see em’ at the track whenever they make it there.”
Chuck: “10-4”
Two days later I walk into Chuck’s office at the track:
Chuck: “Those guys are coming in this morning, riding their road bike over from my place.”
Me: “They doin’ OK”
Chuck: “Yeah. Ya know I didn’t mention they didn’t come into the airport. They arrived by Greyhound from Kennedy airport. Took em’ two days to get here. You should’a seen it. Katherine and about 20 CIBA volunteers showed up to the bus station with banners and a streamers! The riders rolled off the bus not looking too sharp but surprised as hell. They were given cookies, gifts, and hugged a lot.
Me: “Oh boy. They speak any English?”
Chuck: “Nope”
Me: “Doesn’t matter during a workout I suppose. They’ll get it.”
That was how I got to know Ainars Kiksis, then the Junior World Champion and now the World Record Holder for riders 50+ in 200 and 500 meters. Naturally everyone from here “ran into” Ainars during the last trip to Mexico.
After that summer in Indy I only ran into Ainars at international events in Europe. He was good but rarely made the podium and busy as I was with Canadians and American sprinters I never had the opportunity to catch up with his life.
Many years later I saw he was and is dominating Masters sprint racing. Good for him! He is what is commonly referred to a “A force of nature”. Super powerful, buffed, and seemingly ageless. Ainars is right out of some kind of Sci Fi movie when future humans have reached some kind of incredible state.
(except for the hair. he was loosing his hair even way back in Indy)
Thanks to social media I learned Ainars is a successful businessman, speaks fluent Russian, German, and English. No surprise he rides a Harley and one of his big ambitions is to attend the biker rally at Sturgess.
We don’t “stay in touch” but run into one another on occasion and whenever someone brings up my name, Ainars is very complimentary mostly because of Chuck, the people of Indy with their hospitality, and partially due to a year training with some really fast riders and an educated coach. We didn’t do him any harm…
By the way unbeknownst to her, Vikki almost had a close encounter with Ainars.
According to Travis, Ainars will miss the Worlds this year, but I have a feeling we’ll run into him another year.
One more for the gallery of characters, Ainars Kiksas
Take care ride fast and have (a lot of) fun!
Roger
Comments