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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An Olympic athlete from the former Soviet republic of Georgia died after crashing his sled...
Very sad. There is talk that there is a problem with the track.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An Olympic athlete from the former Soviet republic of Georgia died after crashing his sled...
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/2010/02/12/spo-perilympics.htmlTempting fate at the Winter Games
This article was originally published by the New York Times on Wednesday, Feb. 10)
Every winter's day, or so it seemed, brought a fresh report of an Olympic medal hopeful knocked out of contention for the Vancouver Games. From skiers to bobsledders, snowboarders to skaters, a startling number of athletes became part of an agony-of-defeat montage of injuries.
On paper, a pretty good Winter Olympics could be held with all the athletes who are too hurt to make this year's Games. On television, the drama has never been higher. Even among those who have navigated the slippery slopes, their bodies and Olympic hopes relatively intact, a heightened sense of danger has found an unexpected home in the back of the mind.
The most telling admission, perhaps, came last month at the bottom of the halfpipe in Park City, Utah, a few weeks after the snowboarder Kevin Pearce was airlifted from there after sustaining a traumatic brain injury while working on the double cork, the event's latest daredevil stunt...
Evo said:... I like the ice skating because it takes talent, not just athletic prowess. That's really all I watch.
turbo-1 said:Very sad. He was a very young man to have gotten to this level of luge, and this track is VERY fast. Looking at the video on the evening news, he went very high in that last sweeping curve, and then slammed down into the opposite side of the track and rocketed off course into unpadded obstructions. At those high speeds, it might be possible for sliders to encounter aerodynamic unloading that they have never experienced before, and lose control. Those sleds are very light and the sliders are more like human bullets.
Good luck to Maine's Julia Clukey. She has been plagued with injuries this season. Stay on course.
You're right. Any kind of slick barrier to herd a slider back down onto the track would have been far preferable to nothing. I hope the lack of such barriers is not driven by the desire to have open video-cam access to the track without the sports-photographers having to shoot through plexi.Borg said:It was indeed very sad to see. I saw the video as well - he didn't stand a chance. I can't believe that they didn't have railings there - even a sheet of plexiglass between the beams would have probably saved his life.
There are surprisingly few injuries in this sport considering the speeds involved, and very few fatalities.rootX said:How many people die annually from this sport?
turbo-1 said:There are surprisingly few injuries in this sport considering the speeds involved, and very few fatalities.
Do we really need ever faster, deadlier sports in order to entertain ourselves?
This was no isolated incident, not just a bit of human error in an inherently dangerous sport.
It was a tragedy some saw coming on the super-fast track that had produced a dozen training wrecks already and had athletes wondering whether they were being put into harm’s way in a sport already built on attaining near impossible speeds.
“I think they are pushing it a little too much,” Australia’s Hannah Campbell-Pegg told the Associated Press on Thursday after she nearly lost control in training. “To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives.”
Evo said:The athletes themselves are speaking out against it.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=dw-lugedeath021210&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Like driving? That's ridiculous. Have you seen the precautions and gear that sports car drivers have to prevent injury?rootX said:I would disagree. It is something like putting a ban on driving.
Evo said:Like driving? That's ridiculous. Have you seen the precautions and gear that sports car drivers have to prevent injury?
pantaz said:Exactly. When you look at the histories of auto and motorcycle racing, as speeds increased, and injuries/fatalities began increasing, safety precautions were improved. Barriers have been designed to reduce impact force; vehicle/engine design restrictions to limit speed; driver/rider personal safety equipment improvements.
The point is that this particular track is unnecessarily dangerous.rootX said:I would agree with both of you if you can prove that number of injuries/fatalities in this sport are concerning. According to this
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/va...ifth-ever-at-a-Winter-Olympics?urn=oly,219410
there have been 5 deaths since 1964 which doesn't look concerning to me.
Evo said:The point is that this particular track is unnecessarily dangerous.
Not to mention, not that many people luge competitively, do they? So number of deaths and injuries should be very small. Compared to the percent of deaths in pro car & motorcycle racing, it looks high.
So, would you say that the athletes saying this is an unsafe track is not true?zomgwtf said:As a ratio I'm sure that luge is more safe than racing cars, for the crowd and the participants. As well where are the reports about it being due to the dangerous track? I've been hearing reports of a malfunction with the sled. Just because it looks dangerous to you and the fact that it's the fastest track in the world means nothing imo.
Evo said:So, would you say that the athleets saying this is an unsafe track is not true?
zomgwtf said:I would say that the atheletes saying that they are scared to go down this track because it's rediculously fast does not mean that the track is unsafe, yes.
What about the claims that it's unsafe?zomgwtf said:I would say that the atheletes saying that they are scared to go down this track because it's rediculously fast does not mean that the track is unsafe, yes.
berkeman said:Have you ever driven or ridden a racetrack? Not luge, a paved (or dirt) racetrack?
Now that Holcomb has seen what the track is all about, he can’t wait to be back on it next February. Especially since a month after the Whistler races, Holcomb won the 4-man title at the world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y., first by a U.S. sled at worlds in 50 years.
``It was kind of intimidating at first,’’ Holcomb said of Whistler. ``We knew they had problems in the Canadian team trials – a lot of crashes, breaking equipment, people getting hurt, too fast, people saying there was no way sleds could make it down.
``Each person that hears it, gets a little more exaggerated. The first week of training from the top, I was pretty nervous.
"It was overhyped a little, but it was definitely fast. And tricky. No room for mistakes on way down. It’s one of the most fun and challenging tracks in world."
Exactly.Phyisab**** said:It seems to me that it would have been exceedingly easy to prevent this type of accident.
zomgwtf said:I have not that I see how that is relevant to the safety of the track, just because it allows you to reach maximum speeds has nothing to do with how fast you should try to go.
It is dangerous sport indeed but currently I don't see why it should be stopped. I see it as more of an emotional panic response which is similar to time when a US celebrity died during skiing in Canada and after everyone was required to wear a helmet. Unfortunate things happen all the times, too many them can be prevented. But statistical evidence is required to judge the danger/risk.The point is that this particular track is unnecessarily dangerous.
Evo said:Not to mention, not that many people luge competitively, do they? So number of deaths and injuries should be very small. Compared to the percent of deaths in pro car & motorcycle racing, it looks high.
-Yahoo! NewsConcerns about the lightning-fast course had been raised for months. There were worries that the $100 million-plus venue was too technically difficult1, and a lack of significant practice time by everyone but the host nation’s sliders would result in a rash of accidents.2
But the International Luge Federation and Vancouver Olympic officials said their investigation showed that the crash was the result of human error and that “there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.”3
Unpadded? At those speeds, I wondering how much padding it would take to keep someone from getting injured. Besides, they at least are admitting there was a problem with the track.russ_watters said:3. Losing control and falling off his sled isn't what killed him: the unpadded steel column that he flew off the track and hit after he lost control is what killed him.
It may well be that no amount of padding would have saved him*. But that's why I said he shouldn't have even been allowed to leave the track.dlgoff said:Unpadded? At those speeds, I wondering how much padding it would take to keep someone from getting injured.
No, they explicitly stated just the opposite: "there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track."Besides, they at least are admitting there was a problem with the track.