Photographer, singer, skier: 1,000 lives of Prince Hubertus (Feature)

By Daniel Garcia Marco Feb 25, 2010, 21:40 GMT

Whistler, Canada - His name, Hubertus von Hohenlohe, would be at home in Hello! magazine, but it also thrives in the worlds of photography, music and skiing.

Despite the German surname, Von Hohenlohe is Mexico's only representative in the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver.

He is also the oldest competitor at the Games, the only prince, the only competitor with four pop music albums to his name, the only one who has published a book of photographs depicting urban landscapes. Von Hohenlohe is quite unique.

On Tuesday, at the giant slalom in Vancouver 2010, Hubertus von Hohenlohe competed at age 51 in his fifth Olympic Games.

He came 78th out of 81 race finishers, but struck many eyes with what he defined as his 'Desperado' outfit, complete with prints of two revolvers, cartridges and cowboy boots, and with the colours of the Mexican flag.

On Saturday, he is set to compete again, in the Olympic slalom.

'The Games are a modern form of life. Every four years, many people from many countries meet, become friends, there is an exchange. I can give a lot from my life, which is varied and colourful,' the prince tells the German Press Agency dpa in an interview.

His father, Alfonso von Hohenlohe, was baptised at the Royal Palace in Madrid with Spanish king Alfonso XIII (1886-1931) as his godfather, and he was one of the pioneers of the jet-setting Marbella, in southern Spain.

Hubertus' mother, Ira von Fuerstenberg, is a niece of FIAT founder Gianni Agnelli.

And yet the prince does not look quite how one would expect a prince to look. His hair is carefully untidy, he wears a denim shirt and a T-shirt over it with the text, 'I'm stressed. I'm bored. I'm calm.'

A modern, almost juvenile look for a man who does not look his age and who is proud of that.

'They tell me that I look too good, that my mother must have been mistaken about my birth date,' he says with a smile.

Of the three messages on his chest, the one related to stress may well be the most appropriate. But the one on boredom is far from fitting him.

'I like the freedom of being able to change from one thing to another. I was very lucky to be born into a family in which I could afford to develop my dreams and try out different things. Then, I had to make the effort to publish records and books and to give concerts,' he says.

'I live four or five parallel lives, I do not just live one. I learn from one for another. Here I can make the most of things to make portraits of Olympic champions, for example,' he notes.

Now it is the turn of his life as a skier. Von Hohenlohe learnt to slide down slopes in Austria.

'It was the most amusing thing you could do, the rest was all quite boring. So I decided to follow the 'Franz Klammers' of the world.'

A Mexican 'Klammer' - even though he left his native country at age five to live in Spain with his family. He barely spends 'two or three weeks' a year in Mexico.

'I feel like a citizen of the world. I have homes in Italy, in Spain, in (the Mexican resort of) Cabo San Lucas... I do not feel 100 per cent Mexican, I have not lived there the whole time, but part of me is Mexican.'

With Hubertus von Hohenlohe you almost talk about anything but skiing. He finds it hard to choose among his different specialties.

'It is in photography that I have made my own style with the greatest ease,' he says, as he shows off his large-format book on Urban Jungles.

Indirectly, he appears in all the pictures, which are however 'spontaneous, and without tricks.'

The prince takes photographs of sports celebrities like Andy Warhol himself once took photos of him.

'I was his friend, I spent three years at The Factory. He was an alien, pretty strange,' Von Hohenlohe says casually.

And he goes from pop art to pop music.

'I have four albums. It is lighthearted music with intelligent lyrics, ideas of today's world,' he says to define his style (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McipWW07Srk&feature=related).

Photography is now the focus of most of his efforts, but he is already thinking ahead: to making a film and to having children with his girlfriend.

How about Sochi 2014?

'I have plenty to do in life. At my age, going past gates with 20-year-old kids is not the most exciting thing,' says the founder of the Mexican Ski Federation.

His first Olympic experience was at the Games in Sarajevo 1984. For the Games in four years' time he hopes to have a successor within the Mexican federation.

But, whoever that is, it is unlikely that they will add to the Olympics anywhere near as much colour as Prince Hubertus.