Gerda Hofstatter-Gregerson - Part 1 (The G-Force: From Austrian Foils to Pool Glory)

In Part 1 of our four-part conversation, we welcome the unstoppable “G-Force”—Austrian legend Gerda Hofstätter-Gregerson—for a deep dive into the roots of a world-class competitor. Before she became a trailblazer in women’s professional pool and a WPBA & BCA Hall of Famer, Gerda was a fierce, fast-rising athlete from a small Austrian town, growing up in a bustling household with three sisters, two grandmothers, and a father who was dramatically outnumbered—but quietly influential.

Gerda takes us back to an outdoorsy childhood shaped by sport, work, and family. From helping in her parents’ butcher shop to chasing soccer balls with her best friends (three boys), she built the athletic foundation that would later define her game—strong hands, sharp coordination, and an unshakable competitive edge. Then comes fencing: the lunges, the precision, the travel across Europe, and the championship mindset. Gerda explains the discipline of foil fencing, what it takes to win at the highest levels, and how close she came to an Olympic path—until pool entered the picture and changed everything.

Her introduction to billiards is pure movie material: a smoky bar setting, respectful silence, finger-snapping applause, and a teenage Gerda sneaking away to practice because her father didn’t want her in a bar. That secret year turns into a rapid rise through leagues and championships, fueled by instinct, fearless confidence, and a growing support system—including the Ouschan family’s circle in Klagenfurt.

Along the way, Gerda shares the early milestones: European championships, national titles (yes—17 Austrian championships), and the moment she realized: I’ll win next year. This is the origin story—where talent meets purpose, and a champion begins to take shape.

Transcript

Mike Gonzalez 0:14

Welcome to another edition of Legends of the Cue and Mark Wilson. We've got somebody today that used to lunge and Harry at a very high level.

Mark Wilson 0:26

Everything she does is at a very high level. She's a chronic over T Ruf dictionary. If you were to see my background at the pool table, if you'd see hers at the library. That's the difference right there, Alison.

Allison Fisher 0:39

It gives me great pleasure to introduce my very dear friend. I've known her since 1992. She's the first winner of a classic tour event back in 1993. She's a world champion at WPBINBTA Hall of Famer. Please welcome the G Force, Gerda Hofstetter Gregerton. How are you, Gerda?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 1:00

Oh, you guys are too sweet. Thank you for that introduction. Doing really great and happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Mike Gonzalez 1:08

Gerda, so nice to have you. And uh, we've really been looking forward to telling your life story here on Legends of the Q. You're a bit of a rookie to Legends on the of the Q, so you don't even know what our last questions are gonna be, do you?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 1:21

I have no idea. I sorry to admit I haven't heard, seen any of them, so but I can't wait to check them out.

Mike Gonzalez 1:28

Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, you may not know, but we always go way back to the beginning. So we're gonna have you tell our listeners about uh growing up as a little girl in Austria.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 1:40

Okay. Well, I'm from a very small town in Austria called Treibachaldhofen. Grew up in a household with three sisters, mom, dad, who owned a butcher shop and a meat store, and two grandmothers in the home. And it was a very fun and outdoorsy upbringing, always something to do. And uh I just have the most fond memories of growing up. Sports was always a big thing. I played every sport you can imagine when I was a kid, and got serious about fencing first and discovered pool quite late, which is I'm guessing you want to get at, but I didn't start playing pool till 15. So I did all kinds of other sports before then.

Mike Gonzalez 2:28

Yeah, well we'll we'll we had plenty of time to get to pool, but we want to talk about uh even the earlier years. So I would suspect your poor father Werner was outnumbered in that household.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 2:40

Yes, he was. He was my dad and seven women in the house, so God bless him.

Allison Fisher 2:47

It's a lot to deal with, isn't it?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 2:49

It was, but he did amazingly well, but unfortunately he didn't last too long.

Allison Fisher 2:55

Oh did Werner did Werner introduce you into any of your sports?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 3:01

Well, he he was an athlete, quite you know, quite a great athlete himself, but didn't have much time. But he played in the local soccer league when we were little kids, and he was a very good skier, and he played tennis, he did all kinds of things, but he didn't introduce us to pool. But it turns out that he was actually a very good pool player, which I didn't discover till later on, but I'll tell you later about that. But yeah, my dad was definitely the athlete who passed on those jeans, not my mom. She's not athletic.

Allison Fisher 3:33

I was gonna say about that's Vilma, isn't it? Vilma and Vilma.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 3:37

Correct. And she's not okay.

Mike Gonzalez 3:38

Did you work at the butcher shop as a kid?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 3:41

We did have to help, yeah. We did have to help quite a bit. I was recruited to helping stuff sausages.

Mike Gonzalez 3:48

This is this is gonna get like a stuff uh Kelly Fisher memory, Alison, right?

Allison Fisher 3:54

It does remind me of Kelly a little, but she's more in the veggies, you're in the meat section.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 3:58

I was in the meat section. I was helping my dad, you know, when he was filling sausages, I was the one helping to put the casing onto the machine. Yeah, that was my job. But I was growing up with Disney, so my dad had four girls, right? And he obviously I probably like Kenny dad one and a boy, and I was the third one, and they were convinced I would be a boy. And uh they already had the name picked out for me, which was Gat. But then out came another girl. But but I turned out to be the next best thing. I was my uh tomboy and always by my dad's side. So and you know, he would take me on trips to do go watch soccer and sporting with go repair the car. Uh, he always took me with him.

Mike Gonzalez 4:45

So how about your mother, Vilma? Was she uh uh athletic?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 4:51

Uh no, not athletic. No, she didn't ski. As a matter of fact, when we did go on skiing trips, she would just go hike a little bit while the rest of us skied. She's a hard worker. She always worked a lot from morning till night and didn't really have time for hobbies, the way I see it.

Mike Gonzalez 5:12

Yeah.

Allison Fisher 5:13

That's happened later in life, hasn't it, for her?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 5:16

Exactly. Now that she's retired, she's quite active. She does dancing, and you know, with her girlfriends, they go hiking a lot and she's always on the go. But yeah, when we were young, she was always just working.

Mike Gonzalez 5:29

What's you all's experience with being exposed to a broad range of athletics as a child? Would you say a lot of your contemporaries had similar experiences or not?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 5:39

Yes, I think everybody tried everything. I just certain things stuck with you know certain people, but we pretty much did everything. And I was never into the girly things like playing with dolls or doing hand, you know, crafty things. So I was just always playing sports. And growing up, my best friends were three guys. We played soccer and hockey and you know, just doing stuff like that constantly.

Mike Gonzalez 6:06

So yeah, Alison, you played sports, Mark. You played sports as a youth. Would you say your other fellow pool players for the most part were multi-sport athletes as kids too?

Allison Fisher 6:15

I think I think most from the stories that we've heard, most people are. Not all, but most of them. Yeah.

Mark Wilson 6:21

I think all the high-level players are the multi-sport athletes for sure.

Mike Gonzalez 6:26

Yeah, where they develop good hand-eye coordination and yeah, yeah. Well, tell us about fencing. That that sort of came up and I I alluded to that in my opener, but uh what discipline did you excel at?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 6:38

FOIL. I I yeah, I only competed in foil. There were three main ones that people did, but I only ever did FOIL. I started at age 10 and got really serious about it really fast. We had practiced three times a week in the evening from 6 to 9 p.m. And we would travel and go compete in tournaments almost every weekend all over Europe. Our our uh fencing instructor, Faruk Tarashin, she would grab you know a handful of kids and go travel to the tournaments. Sometimes my dad would help with the driving, but it was mostly our instructor.

Mike Gonzalez 7:19

So let's educate our listeners, many of whom probably aren't that deep into fencing. You you mentioned you excelled in foil. So explain the difference between epifoil and saber for our listeners.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 7:32

Right. So in foil, you you can only score with the tip of your foil, and you can only score on the torso. The head, the arms, and the legs don't count. And as I said, only with the tip of the foil. Like if you hit it with the side, like with saber, that's not a point. There's a your it's an electrical device that recognizes when you compress the tip of the foil, and that's how you get your point. And everybody wears an electric vest that uh picks up the contact.

Mike Gonzalez 8:07

And the other disciplines, how do they work?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 8:10

With the saber, you can hit somebody also with the with the side of the weapon. And yeah, and the third one, I don't even know what it's called in English. It's Dagen in in German, and it's similar to foil, but I never did that. Is that Epi? I'm not sure.

Mike Gonzalez 8:26

I'm sorry to say. Yeah. And the arena that you participate in this sport is called I have no idea.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 8:35

We did it in gyms, they set up the I I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Mike Gonzalez 8:40

Yeah, the highest mic. I think they call it the piste.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 8:45

That sounds like on a ski slope, doesn't it? The pista.

Mike Gonzalez 8:49

The pista, okay.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 8:51

Yeah, they set them up in gyms, they set up several lanes of you know, these again wired mats that they lay down and you have to be hooked up.

Allison Fisher 9:02

So So Goethe, how does one even walk into looking at fencing? How did that even start for you? Well, it was coincidence.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 9:11

Yeah, it was coincidence. In my small town, we had a club, and my cousin Ged hoofed it. I was gonna be him, yeah. He was born a couple of months after me, and then he was named Gert. And he he was fencing, and we were hanging out quite a bit, and he introduced me to it. And I remember being on a play date at his house, he showed me his bag but all his equipment, you know, all the the gear. And I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. So that day I went home and I asked my parents if I could try it. And of course, they were always supportive of anything sporties. And I fell into it and I was fairly good at it from the beginning. My teachers saw potential and yeah, I got very serious about it.

Mike Gonzalez 10:01

Yeah, before age 18, you had won the Austrian Championship in fencing. You also, I think, had won an international event as well, right?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 10:08

Correct. Yeah, won the the for my age group in the youth and several of those events in Austria, and it qualified me for an international event that was held in Hungary, and it was like an official European championship. And I ended up winning that. I ended up winning that. Yeah, that was the biggest honor.

Allison Fisher 10:29

That's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 10:32

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 10:32

Were the Olympics ever in your thought then?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 10:34

They they were, honestly. But I think had I stuck with fencing, I think I would have made it there because we had such a great program in Austria. But pool got in the way. You know, I discovered pool and fell in love with that. And I wanted to do both, but it was my fencing instructor who said I can't dance on every festival awards, and she made me pick one.

Mike Gonzalez 10:59

So I've never heard that term, but that uh feels very interesting, isn't it?

Allison Fisher 11:04

My PE teacher did that to me, funnily enough. They there's always somebody who comes along and sort of crushes the dream of doing both, isn't there? Right. Anyway, so you went, how did you get introduced to Paul from fencing then? How did that start?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 11:18

Well, that was my older sister Ingrid. She and her boyfriend, they played in a in a actually they formed a club in our hometown. I I'm not sure how they got into it. Uh there was a coin-operated six-foot tables in you know, a couple of bars in our hometown, and they enjoyed playing a lot. And a few of them got together and decided they should form a club. And they rented a room, bought one table, and formed a club and started playing in leagues. And the first time I went to watch my sister compete in a league, I was just fascinated with, you know, just seeing the balls on the on the table, I guess, and how everything worked. In in back in Europe, when people play, you know, everybody's very respectful when they watch and it's quiet. And when somebody hits a good shot, everybody snaps their fingers. You know, they don't clap, they snap their fingers. And the whole atmosphere was just so amazing and fascinating. So I fell in love with it and wanted to play too. But in the beginning, I wasn't allowed to. My my dad, you know, didn't like the idea of me going to the bar, bar restaurant, because I was connected. There were no standalone pool rooms, it was all in a bar. And so in the beginning I had to sneak away and secretly practice. For about a whole year, I I my dad didn't know that I was playing.

Allison Fisher 12:49

Yeah. Noti. How old were you then?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 12:53

15. I started at 15. Yeah, that's when I got my start.

Mike Gonzalez 12:58

So how did you learn then, other than through observation?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 13:01

Just uh uh in the club, there were a couple of good players that knew how to stop the ball and play a draw shot, and it was Kutti, Kuti Rauta was his name, and he just taught everyone. And then, you know, from then starting playing in the league and traveling and watching the other players, you just pick up things. But nobody had nobody had formal introduction ever. It was just, you know, see field do. I I never thought about anything technical. I didn't know how I did things, I just pictured what I wanted to happen and did it.

Allison Fisher 13:39

I became very good at that. And I met Kurtie, he was the leader, wasn't he of the Austrian?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 13:44

Oh, you're talking about you're talking about a different Kurti. That was Kurty Schoutz. Yeah.

Allison Fisher 13:48

Okay, Curti Schoutz.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 13:50

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 13:51

You probably didn't have an Austrian uh role model, I suppose, in the sport at that time, did you?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 13:56

Well, no, there were a couple of guys who were really, really good already. They had already competed in a few European championships. It was always organized really well. The you know, where I started it was just uh you know fish it was check a league where people teams of four, five, six players go travel to another club and play for a few hours and you know, keep the scores and go home. But they also had Corinthian championships and then Austrian championships, and they even had European championships already that you know that happened way before I entered the scene.

Mike Gonzalez 14:36

Okay. And what so what games were you playing in the league when you first uh all three eight ball, nine ball, and straight pool. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and straight pool too, yeah. What was your favorite early on?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 14:47

Early on, my favorite was eight ball. Um but we played all of them. I'm not sure. I I guess that was just most obvious what you had to do. And it was also what they needed in the team, whatever they needed. Everybody played either nine ball, eight ball, or straight ball, a short race. And you know, the team captain would just assign the player to which discipline, and then go from there.

Mike Gonzalez 15:17

Tell us tell us about the first pool cue that you remember.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 15:20

Oh gosh. It was just a nothing, it was a one cue that fit it perfectly in its case. The little case, you know, you could take it apart, and the case just had room for the butt, the shaft, and one piece of chalk. And it was like uh, I don't know, maybe a $30 cue. That was how I got started. Yeah, but um it worked fine.

Mike Gonzalez 15:43

Yeah. So at what age were you then when you were trying to make that decision between six at sixteen I had to decide.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 15:50

I started pool at 15, and at 16 my teacher, my fencing instructor made me decide and I stuck with pool.

Mike Gonzalez 15:59

Okay.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 16:00

Good choice. Yes, it turns out it was a very good choice, I think.

Mike Gonzalez 16:06

So did anybody then sort of put you under their wing at an early age to really teach you the fundamentals?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 16:12

Correct. It was actually Jasmin Ocean's dad. After I got a little better, my my club in Althoven became too small, and I had to go to Klagenfurt, where Yassi is from. And her dad was the best player in the area, and he took me under his wing, and I started playing on their team instead of our little team in Austria, and learned a lot from him.

Allison Fisher 16:39

Yeah, it's fascinating. I didn't realize he was a great player and very good player.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 16:46

Yes, he was very good.

Mike Gonzalez 16:48

So you would have come across uh the Ocean Brother and Sister combination at uh at a very early age, then I think.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 16:55

Yeah, I knew them when they were toddlers, yeah. Is that right? Okay, yes, yes, and uh when I when I left Austria at 19, I moved away. I moved to Sweden at 19. So they were a few years old then so I didn't really grow up with them, but I you know I knew them before they fell into poor.

Mike Gonzalez 17:14

Yeah, so I suppose father uh their father then was their influencer early on.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 17:19

Yes, I'm sure. Yeah, and they had several good players in that club.

Allison Fisher 17:24

That's nice. So go let's go back a little bit in time because it says here in 1987 you won your first Austrian championship.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 17:31

Austrian Championship, okay. Yes, is that your first time in it, or um the Austrian championship? I can't remember if I won the first or the second. I think it might have been the first. I know in the Corinthian Championship, which is the before, I won that one right away. And then the Austrian I honestly can't remember which one the first one was. I with all the times. No, it doesn't matter. I won a no, I won a lot of the Austrian because there were a lot of chances. You know, you competed in eight pole, nine pole, and straight pole. So there were a lot of chances to win championships.

Allison Fisher 18:10

And then when was the first time you went to the European Championships?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 18:14

In 1988 was the first, I believe. So I was 17. I only played for a couple of years, and there was actually a controversy because as the Austrian champion, I qualified for the European Championship, but apparently there was a rule that you had to be 18 years old, and they told me I can't play because I wasn't old enough. And then there were all kinds of petitions from the Austrian Federation, and long story short, they did change the rule and let me play. So I yeah, I went with my team up to Sweden to play. That was so much fun. The Austrian team, we all met in Klagenfurt and we got on the train and we took a very long trip up to Stockholm, Sweden, and competed there as a team. And so that was my first European championship, and I did not win that one. I finished second in that one. And at that point, my obvious we skipped over that. My but my dad had already, you know, become supportive of me playing. And I remember him picking me up at the train station on the way home, and he asked me how it went, and I said, Well, I didn't win, but I will win next year. Right after after the European first European championship. So I knew how close I was that first year, and I knew what I had to work on, and luckily it turned out to be true in 1989. Then the next year I won my first European championship.

Allison Fisher 19:46

Now, Werner, so he became supportive. How did that work? Oh yeah.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 19:51

Well, it was the officials in Klagenfurt, you know, who ran the Corinthian Federation. They reached out to him and told him that he has the wrong impression of what it is. It's not a bar sport, it's well organized and that I'm very talented. And they sort of, you know, asked him to sit down with them and they convinced him to let me play. And, you know, secretly I'm just sure he was very proud to hear that and said, All right, then let's give it a go. And it turned out he became my biggest supporter. And later on I realized that I got my talent from him. Because I don't know, Ellie, if you remember, but we set up some spot shots when he was visiting in Charlotte one point, and he made spot shots from the frozen to the rail. And I'm like, What? Yeah, he could he could he could make a spot shot from the coupon frozen to the rail, which anybody would struggle with, but he could do it. I was like, wow, that's pretty amazing. That's crazy.

Mike Gonzalez 20:54

Yeah, so so 1987, you win the first of your Austrian championships. You're being a bit modest. I mean, you said there were a lot of chances, but you only won 17 of them.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 21:05

Yeah, I won 17. I don't know what to say. Just to make sure. You know, Austria is a small country. We do have a really, really good federation and a very awesome grassroots program. They're always trying to recruit younger players, and they're extremely supportive of the talent. You know, if you travel to tournaments, they help you out financially, and they set up training camps and everything. It's just gotten better over the years now with the the ocean siblings uh you know being involved in that. They have an amazing program in Austria for the players. Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 21:40

And and true to your word, 1989 you came back to your second European pool championship, won the eight ball event.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 21:47

Yes. Yeah, I was the first one to win a gold medal for Austria, and it was a huge honor. And I remember coming home from that trip kind of embarrassing. But my uh my hometown, you know, the marching band from the home. Oh my god, they had a little reception from me. I was coming in with the car, you know, towards my parents' house and the whole marching band was in front of my parents' midsta and the mayor of the town was there to greet me and it was a whole big thing. And I got the key to our city and you know became an honor citizen of our my hometown. And I was still in high school, and so the my entire high school got an hour off in school to celebrate me. You were a hero.

Allison Fisher 22:40

I love that in honor of you.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 22:42

That's wonderful. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 22:45

You were a hero. You would have been what, 18 or 19 then when you played your second one?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 22:52

High school. So oh boy, wait, that was the European chance. You know what? I might have jumped ahead. I I I'm so confused. I told you guys, I'm sorry, I don't remember well. But now I'm thinking that's too much for a European championship. And now I wonder if that was 1999, King to the City. Was it?

Mike Gonzalez 23:11

I think it was for uh big mess now in my head.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 23:15

I remember my high school getting an hour off. Yeah. But but now I'm thinking the marching band and all that was later for my world championship. I'm sorry. I think that was for my world championship.

Allison Fisher 23:28

You get that people listening, it's for world championships. You don't get a marching band just for European, you get it for world championships.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 23:34

Okay. At least I think so.

Mike Gonzalez 23:37

And what was the marching band playing? Do you remember?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 23:39

They were what were they playing? No, it's Adelvice.

Allison Fisher 23:46

Um, that's how it goes. Exactly. Oh my gosh. What was tell us about your introduction to Jürgen Semm?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 23:57

Okay, that was uh from a he offered junior training camps in Sweden, and I had in Austria, I probably had already won the Austrian championship, and they wanted to further in Austria they wanted to further, you know, the younger players, and they put together a group of I can't remember, four or five players, and they wanted to send us to the training camp in Sweden. And that's why I met Jürgen. He had uh I think it was a 10-day-long training camp, and he had Mike Massey as a guest instructor, and Jürgen was a fantastic instructor himself. So the two of them ran this instructional camp, and that was where I learned how to practice for the first time. So I I feel like up until that, yeah, it was just play, and that's where I learned how to actually practice with a purpose.

Mike Gonzalez 24:56

And that I think Mike kind of I think Mike might have shared that with us, uh, his experience. I'm sure, yeah.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 25:02

Mike has very fond memories, uh fond memories of that time. He and Francine were invited over to Sweden, and Mike just had the best time, you know, teaching people and showing his trick shot stuff. But Mike was a fantastic player too. I feel like he was underrated as a as a pool player because of his trick shot shows.

Mike Gonzalez 25:24

Yeah.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 25:24

Overshadowing his legacy.

Mike Gonzalez 25:27

Right.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 25:27

He was a very, very good player, especially straight bowl.

Mike Gonzalez 25:30

So coming off that uh that big European win in 89, of course, you're preparing now to leave home. But before you do, we always like to educate our listeners on geography and sports and other things. So tell us a little bit about Austria before you leave Austria.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 25:48

Right. So Austria, small country in Central Europe, it's north of Italy and Slovenia, and it's next to east of Switzerland and west of Hungary and south of Germany. And uh now the Czech Republic is northeast of us, so it's surrounded by awesome countries. It's very beautiful, very mountainous. We have the Alps going through the northern Italy and Austria. We're famous for tons of lakes that are high up in the mountains, lots and lots of small lakes that are absolutely beautiful. And it's an amazing place to visit if you enjoy the outdoors, hiking, skiing. But we're also very, very rich on culture. Austria is known for its classical music, uh, good food and wine. And yeah, just an amazing place. Especially if you want to go in there. Yeah, if you want to discover Europe, I feel like it's a great place to start because you can rent a car and reach m several other places too fairly easily.

Mike Gonzalez 26:55

Yeah. I mean, if you're a classical music fan, of course, you're gonna you're gonna immerse yourself in that nausea. Exactly.

Allison Fisher 27:01

Yes, she's underplaying it. That that is a slice of heaven where she lives because I visited a few times, and it really is. It's absolutely beautiful. Yeah. And four-hour drive to Venice, it's really and then Vienna on the other side.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 27:16

Yeah, Vienna is north, three hours north, Munich is four hours a little northwest, and like you said, Venice is south. And you know, when you grow up in a place like that, it's easy to take it for granted. You don't, you know, because that's what you're used to and you don't realize. But since I've moved away, I left when I was 19, right? So I haven't lived there since 19. But when I go back to visit, I honestly now when I go back, I fly into Munich and we drive the car from Munich. It's a four-hour drive to my hometown. And you drive through the scenery, it it gets you choked up. It's that beautiful, and you realize once once you don't have it anymore, what you know how pretty it is.

Allison Fisher 28:00

So yeah, it's a special presence. There's a reason that Jasmine and Albin stayed there, right? Exactly. They could live anywhere, couldn't they? For sure.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 28:09

Yeah, they live right in Klangfurt, which is right on the Wertese. It's it's idyllic, very, very beautiful.

Mike Gonzalez 28:16

Some of us were introduced to Austria if we're old enough with the mu the obviously the the the movie The Sound of Music.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 28:22

Oh, the sound of music. Yeah, that's a funny story. Because in Austria, people didn't really know that movie. It was actually Alison who introduced me to it. I had never seen it yet.

Allison Fisher 28:33

Yeah. And then she introduced her family to it. Yes.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 28:37

Wow. Yeah. So yeah, people didn't know that growing up. It wasn't a thing.

Mike Gonzalez 28:44

We saw that in night, whatever that came out in 64 or whatever, in a big cineplex in Washington, DC. It was it was a spectacular. Yeah, I was, you know, nine years old. It was like a life-changing experience being in that big movie theater, and it was pretty cool. But uh, you know, Beethoven spent uh the later part of his life in Vienna. I think Mozart was born in Salzburg, right?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 29:06

Yes.

Mike Gonzalez 29:07

Tiden list uh the Strausses, there were just so many great there. And then if you're a Formula One fan, you had a pretty famous Austrian.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 29:15

Oh, we had Nikki Lauda, yeah. You know about him? Wow, yeah, you're on top of it. Yeah, Nicky Lauda was very famous, and he, yeah, he I actually watched Formula One with my dad, believe it or not, growing up, which I was like, yung yung. I'm like, why are we watching this? But it was a thing, everything.

Mike Gonzalez 29:34

You can do the sound effects for the telecast. Yeah.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 29:39

So, but I don't know if it was because Nikki Lauda, you know, had his day, but then he had the terrible accident and you know almost burned to death, but came out of it. And then he ended up forming Lauda Air. You know, he had a famous great airline. Airline, thank you. Sometimes I can't think of words.

Mike Gonzalez 30:01

So yes. And uh your country hosted, uh at least in the last 50 years, hosted a couple of winter Olympics.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 30:08

Yes, for sure. I would think in the Winter Olympics were strong contenders and have done really well. I've lost touch a little bit, but growing up we would always watch all the you know ski competitions, and I was a huge fan of all the ski like Franz Klammer and and even the jumpers. We had some really great winter athletes, and I haven't followed it too much. I'm not sure how we are doing this year in the Winter Olympics.

Mike Gonzalez 30:39

I'm not either, but just for our listeners, the Winter Olympics are going on right now.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 30:43

They're going on right now, yeah. All I know from this year is that Lindsay Vaughn hurt herself. She competed hurt and she hurt herself even more.

Allison Fisher 30:52

Yeah, that's she had a torn ACR when she went down the hill, didn't she? She broke her tibia, I think. Amazing athlete. Yeah, amazing.

Mike Gonzalez 31:01

Yeah. Well, back to back to Pool then. So take us through your decision to leave home.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 31:08

Well, there really once I had played the first European championship, I realized that the best players were in Germany and in Sweden. And I had really fallen in love with Pool at at at that time, you know, finishing school, finishing high school at 19. I kind of it was always in my head that I would go straight to university. But then having discovered Pool, all I wanted to do was play pool. And I had already met Jürgen, and I, you know, I guess had somewhat of a crush on Jürgen.

Mike Gonzalez 31:46

Oh, your node comes out. Oh no, it comes out in the beans.

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 31:51

So and yeah, so straight after finishing high school, I moved to Sweden basically because of Jürgen, and then started working at his poor room, and then from there he organized that I could discover a professional pool here in America, and the rest is history.

Mike Gonzalez 32:15

So you were there for what, a couple of years?

Gerda Hofstatter Gregerson 32:18

In Sweden, uh yeah, on and off five years, but after two years I started traveling heavily into America, and I spent about half the year over here and at half the year in Europe, because they had already started a Euro tour. But there were only maybe six tournaments a year, and the money was not very good. I remember in one year out of the six tournaments, I reached all six finals. I won four of them and finished second in two, but it only paid my expenses. I didn't end up making any money doing that. So um America was really the place to be if you wanted to make a living.

Allison Fisher 32:57

Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Q. If you like what you hear, wherever you listen to your podcast, including Apple and Spotify, please follow, subscribe, and spread the word. Give our podcast a five-star rating and share your thoughts. Visit our website and support our full history project. Until our next golden break with more Legends of the Cube. So long, everybody.