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Feb 10 (Reuters) - American doubles luger Christian Niccum branded as "ridiculous and sad" a promotional video from a diversity group featuring two athletes rocking back and forth on a sled with the message that the Olympic Games "have always been a little gay". In the 33-second video, released by the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion (CIDI), two figures sit at the start of a luge track, clad in black Lycra with red helmets and black face masks, and suggestively sway in slow motion. Accompanied by British 1980s electronic pop band Human League's hit song "Don't You want me...

Shiva Keshavan, a 31-year-old luge athlete participating in his fifth Olympic Games, falls off his sled but manages to remain calm and regain control to finish his practice run. - See more at: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/indian-luger-shiva-keshavan-crashes-then-makes-amazing-save?ctx=top-moments#sthash.oeKMH3zj.dpuf

WHISTLER, B.C. - The design firm commissioned to build the Whistler Sliding Centre vowed to create the "most challenging" course ever made. It now promises to be the last of its kind. The International Olympic Committee is investigating how the course, originally designed for speeds of 137 km/h, allowed athletes to set world records of more than 153 km/h. Those speeds had athletes and officials questioning course safety leading up to the Games and yesterday's death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. "The track is too fast," Joseph Fendt, president of the World Luge Federation, told London's Daily Telegraph. "We had...

WHISTLER, British Columbia — An Olympic luge athlete injured in a crash at the Whistler Sliding Centre in November warned Canadian officials about safety hazards at the track months before a competitor was killed last week at the Vancouver Games in an accident on the same course. Werner Hoeger, who competed in the Turin and Salt Lake Games for Venezuela, said he lost consciousness and sustained a concussion during a training run on Nov. 13 after his sled caromed off...

Anybody see the interview with the Austrian luge dude who complained about having to start "from the old lady position"? Austria must be about 40 years behind the PC curve...

BAKURIANI, Georgia—The young Georgian luger who died in a horrific training accident hours before the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Friday told his father he was terrified of the track before doing the run that killed him. "He called me before the Olympics, three days ago, and he said, 'Dad, I'm scared of one of the turns,' " David Kumaritashvili said in an interview at his house in the small mountain town of Bakuriani on Sunday.

WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Germany's Felix Loch has a sizable lead at the midway point of the men's Olympic luge competition. Loch finished two runs Saturday night in 1 minute, 36.570 seconds, 0.282 seconds ahead of countryman David Moeller. Two-time defending Olympic champion Armin Zoeggeler of Italy is third, 0.432 seconds off Loch's pace. From the U.S., Tony Benshoof is seventh, Chris Mazdzer 13th and Bengt Walden 15th. The final two runs are Sunday. A moment of silence was held at the track before racing began in memory of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old from the republic of Georgia who died...

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...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – In time-honored tradition, the show went on. Despite the training-run death earlier in the day of a luger from the country of Georgia, the Olympics' opening ceremonies were launched Friday night with a jubilant countdown by the crowd filling BC Place Stadium. The festive mood, and the opening rain of confetti, contrasted sharply with the grief that befell the games earlier in the day when luger Nodar Kumaritashvili of the republic of Georgia died in a horrific crash on the sliding track at Whistler. "This is a very sad day," said a visibly shaken Jacques Rogge,...

Today, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili luge athlete died while practicing on the Vancouver Olympic's "Whistler Sliding Centre". For those that have seen the video of the horrible crash, the first thing that stands out it the proximity of a series of steel I-beam supports a mere 2 to 3 feet away from the core of the track: One has to wonder just how such a design - for a facility meant for unprotected humans to fly down it at almost a hundred miles an hour - could have been built. What could have been considered to be a higher priority...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia(AP)—A men’s luger from the former Soviet republic of Georgia died Friday after a crash during training, an Olympic official with direct knowledge of the situation said. The death cast a shocking pall over the Vancouver Olympics hours before the opening ceremony. The official told The Associated Press that the International Olympic Committee received confirmation of Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the 21-year-old luger’s family hadn’t been notified yet

WHISTLER - Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili was sent to Whistler Hospital on Friday after a terrifying crash at Whistler Olympic Park. There are reports that Kumaritashvili has died. Kumaritashvili was going near 150 km/h near the end of the course, when he launched off the track. Witnesses say his body hit a metal pole. CPR was performed almost immediately and an ambulance rushed Kumaritashvili from Whistler Olympic Park. The Province's Terry Bell has been told that Kumaritashvili hit his head on a metal pole as he flew off the track. Medical personnel performed CPR through a plastic tube. "It...

WHISTLER, British Columbia (AP)—A men’s Olympic luger from Georgia crashed during training Friday and is receiving emergency treatment. Officials said Nodar Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled, went over the wall of the track and appeared to hit a steel pole near the finish line at the Whistler Sliding Center. Rescue officials rushed to the scene and were performing chest compressions as well as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Kumaritashvili was lifted into an ambulance.