Posted on 02/13/2010 7:53:39 AM PST by ZGuy
Fast and frightening, yes. Responsible for the death of a luger, no.
Olympic officials decided late Friday night against any major changes in the track or any delays in competition and even doubled up on the schedule in the wake of the horrifying accident that claimed the life of a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia.
They said they would raise the wall where the slider flew off the track and make an unspecified "change in the ice profile" — but only as a preventative measure "to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again."
Within sight of the finish line, Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed coming out of the 16th turn and slammed into an unpadded steel pole while traveling nearly 90 mph. Despite frantic attempts by paramedics to save his life, he died at a trauma center.
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."
In a joint statement they said Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate. "This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident."
Crashes happen often in luge — at least 12 sliders have wrecked just this week on the daunting Whistler surface. Still, some who have been around tracks their entire lives couldn't remember someone actually being thrown over the wall.
"It's a very rare situation," three-time Olympic champion and German coach Georg Hackl said.
"My opinion is that it's not any more dangerous than anywhere else."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
PAD the Steel Pole!!
They better hope there is not another accident.
Doubtful that it would have made a difference at 90mph.
Why would there be any kind of such structure next to a luge track? Extremely poor design from a safety viewpoint, if someone goes off the track, they should have room to slide into hay bales or netting.
Pilot error? The athlete was killed because of an unsafe track. THIS was pissing on the grave he isn't even in yet.
At the speed he was going, padding the pole would have still seen him dead.
REMOVE the steel pole!
If you read the whole article you’ll see that there have been multiple injuries, not enough practice time and this on a track designed for very high speeds and technically challenging corners. And there’s nothing wrong with the track?
AMEN!!
Ditto
The show must go on. Just blame the dead guy and move on.
Way to displace blame. Even the world’s best have crashed this week, many complaining about the course. Yeah, he may not have had the same level of training as other teams from countries with access to better training. But when even the world’s best crash and raise concerns about the run, there is something wrong.
I guess hindsight is 20-20. I was really getting disturbed at the replay of this poor guys death. Very violent and sudden.
Seems like the most elementary of safety measures would be to swaddle any object like this in padding.
I understand they’ve proposed restrictor plates to limit crashes and level the playing field.
Padding that pole wouldn’t make a damn difference.
Make the wall higher AND pad the steel poles. As much as the IOC wants to make it operator error, chances of this man living would have been improved with better safety features. Of course, luge is an inherently dangerous sport, but certain measures should have been taken to make sure that people don’t fly through the air and off the course.
The world’s best crash all the time.
This is a typical knee-jerk overreaction.. I see it infested Free Republic, people who know nothing about the luge.
Huh? What are you talking about?
There should be criminal charges against everyone responsible for the unsafe track. There should be additional charges for peeing on Nodar Kumaritashvili’s grave.
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