Olympic athlete dies after luge crash

[Ivan Seeking]

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.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A related story from Feb 3rd

Tempting 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...

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/2010/02/12/spo-perilympics.html

One athlete was just saying that some people have hit 97 mph on this luge track. It is the fastest track in the world.

egad, I just saw the video. He flies off the track and right into a cement or steel post. Yeah, I'd say there is a problem with the track.

 

[MotoH]

It is the most dangerous too.

Blackcomb needs to get their heads out of their arse and create a safe track. There has been accidents before, and they have been told to fix the problems and they havent.

This p***es me off. There is no reason anyone should have died on that track. Injuries from lack of concentration I can expect, but no one should ever leave the track.

 

[Evo]

Do we really need ever faster, deadlier sports in order to entertain ourselves?

I like the ice skating because it takes talent, not just athletic prowess. That's really all I watch.

 

[turbo]

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.

 

[Dembadon]

... I like the ice skating because it takes talent, not just athletic prowess. That's really all I watch.

Our favorite is the team figure skating. The sheer amount of balance and coordination it takes to pull off some of the things they do will forever leave me astonished. Just the choreography alone is quite an accomplishment, but to then do it on ice?? :

We also like to see the gymnastics / tumbling events.

 

[Borg]

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.

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.

 

[Astronuc]

At the point that a human body is flying along at 90+ mph on nothing but a board, the safety precautions are paramount. It certainly takes great skill as well as speed to get the fastest average speed, or shortest course time, but there's something very wrong with the system where some guy flies off the track at ~90 mph. The body isn't designed to take high speed impacts.

RIP Nodar Kumaritashvili.

My condolences to his family and friends.

 

[turbo]

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.

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.

 

[rootX]

How many people die annually from this sport?

 

[turbo]

How many people die annually from this sport?

There are surprisingly few injuries in this sport considering the speeds involved, and very few fatalities.

 

[rootX]

There are surprisingly few injuries in this sport considering the speeds involved, and very few fatalities.

I thought so. I didn't go through all the thread but was just replying to ..

Do we really need ever faster, deadlier sports in order to entertain ourselves?

 

[Evo]

The athletes themselves are speaking out against it.

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.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=dw-lugedeath021210&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

 

[rootX]

The athletes themselves are speaking out against it.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=dw-lugedeath021210&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I would disagree. It is something like putting a ban on driving.

 

[Evo]

I would disagree. It is something like putting a ban on driving.

Like driving? That's ridiculous. Have you seen the precautions and gear that sports car drivers have to prevent injury?

 

[pantaz]

Like driving? That's ridiculous. Have you seen the precautions and gear that sports car drivers have to prevent injury?

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.

 

[rootX]

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.

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]

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.

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.

 

[zomgwtf]

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.

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]

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.

So, would you say that the athletes saying this is an unsafe track is not true?

 

[zomgwtf]

So, would you say that the athleets saying this is an unsafe track is not true?

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]

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.

Have you ever driven or ridden a racetrack? Not luge, a paved (or dirt) racetrack?

 

[Evo]

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]

Have you ever driven or ridden a racetrack? Not luge, a paved (or dirt) racetrack?

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.

@Evo
I haven't really seen any atheltes claiming the track is unsafe. I've heard them say many things about the track but nothing regarding how safe it was built. Here is one of the things an athlete has said:

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."

 

[zomgwtf]

As well the athlete who was in the accident had other accidents on this track and his average speed was 88km/h... that's quiet a bit lower than what the rest of the athletes have been going on the track.

IMO it is more to do with human error or malfunctioning equipment than a dangerous track.

 

[Phyisab****]

It seems to me that it would have been exceedingly easy to prevent this type of accident.

 

[Evo]

It seems to me that it would have been exceedingly easy to prevent this type of accident.

Exactly.

 

[berkeman]

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.

For those of us who have been on a racetrack at race speed, track safety is a big issue (obviously). My personal experiences have been on a sportbike on racetracks, and on a motocross bike on MX tracks.

Track safety is a primary concern to track designers and riders/drivers. That's the reason you have gravel run-off areas on the outside of paved racetrack courses. You can over-cook your entry, and still not crash badly. And that's the reason the gravel run-off areas are so wide, so that you can regain control and hopefully not get stuck and carefully get back on track.

That's also the reason that the final padded walls are so far away from the track, across the gravel traps. If you can't control it in the trap, you hit a padded wall in the end (often "air fences"). You don't usually die from hitting an air fence.

And how many steel poles and trees do you see on the average MX track? There are sometimes some trees, but they are well off the speed course, and well padded.

The designers of the luge course screwed up.

And yes, when sportbike racers or MX racers see a safety problem at a racetrack, they often band together and make it clear to the race organizer that there will be no race until the problem is fixed.

 

[Blenton]

Why don't they put some sort of mesh over the top?

 

[rootX]

The point is that this particular track is unnecessarily dangerous.

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.

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.

We don't have sufficient data to arrive at any conclusion if that could be the possibility. Neither enough information to conclude that course should be improved.

 

[Cyrus]

97 mph + ice = me shuddering to think about being on that thing. Holy-moly that's nuts.

It's literally equivalent to crashing a motorcycle into a telephone pole.

 

[russ_watters]

So the conclusion in the report by luge officials is that the luger made a mistake which caused the crash. Therefore no major changes are being made to the track, but they are raising the wall and changing the ice profile (whatever that means). Here's the article, but it doesn't link the full report.
http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/story/olympic-luge-probe-completed-021310

It seems to me that these statements miss the entire point of the issue being discussed in this thread:

1. Of course accidents are the fault of the lugers: there is always a mistake that leads to a crash. But...
2. The faster and more difficult the course, the more likely accidents will be. In essence, they raised the skill level required to successfully navigate the course above the level of the olympic athletes! And most importantly...
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. Though they are raising the wall, they apparently didn't comment on the simple fact that the track had a design flaw that made it possible to leave the track and hit an unpadded steel colum. Because, simply put, it should be completely impossible for a luger to leave the track. Forget padding the column - there shouldn't be any chance of a luger hitting it.

 

[Kronos5253]

Concerns 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

-Yahoo! News

Here's my 2 cents on it...

1) Too technical?? These are supposed to be the top athletes in the world. Did they want an easy course? Or just to breeze through it? I thought the olympics were supposed to challenging, therefore EARNING the right of the title of the best in the world. They chose this sport, and strived to be the best in it. Take the course as a challenge and do everything to the best of your ability.

2) That's entirely and completely understandable. Considering it's an extremely difficult course, they should have a lot more time to practice on it.

3) I don't know if any of you read the other article about this on Yahoo!, but he had a few crashes before that run, so I don't understand why it wasn't assumed to be human error in the first place. Not to mention the luge is a dangerous sport to begin with. The only problem I have with this is that everyone went after the track... I'm pretty sure if the pole that this guy hit was that close to the track (however covered by the track it may have looked), it should have been padded. That may very well have been the difference between him living and losing his life.

 

[dlgoff]

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.

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]

Unpadded? At those speeds, I wondering how much padding it would take to keep someone from getting injured.

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.

Besides, they at least are admitting there was a problem with the track.

No, they explicitly stated just the opposite: "there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track."

*[edit]Ehh, I'm not so sure that's true. I mean heck, in motorsports, the "padding" on the walls will stop a car from 200mph without injuring a driver. If the padding has to be two feet thick to do it, I bet it is possible. Still, that's a secondary point. The main point is that lugers should not be allowed to leave the track.