The Official Story: G-force, not track, cause of luger's death at Olympics

[steven johnson]

A design firm decided that they would create the most challenging luge course ever for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Compounding the speed problem was that the Whistler course has an unusual design where the tighter corners occur near the bottom where racers top out their speeds.

Before the fatal crash, Armin Zoeggeler from Italy, the defending Olympic champion, lost control in the first run Friday.

Just to demonstrate the Canadian sense of fair play, Canadian authorities had limited practice times to 40 training run but their own athletes had more than 300.

Instead of Russian roulette, this is Canadian roulette. Sudden death anyone? Anyone like to be a crash test dummy?

WHISTLER — Driver mistakes caused the horrifying crash that killed Republic of Georgia luger Norad Kumaritashvili Friday at the Whistler Sliding Center, the Coroners Service of British, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the International Luge Federation (FIL) concluded Saturday.
"It appears after a routine run, the athlete came late off curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make (a) correct entrance into curve 16," the statement said. "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.

"The technical officials for the FIL were able to retrace the path of the athlete and concluded there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track."

FIL communications officer Wolfgang Holder said the men lugers will start their runs from the women's start, which is further down the track. By adjusting the start, the men will not be able to reach their top speeds, which have been recorded at over 95 mph this week.




Probe: G-force, not track, cause of luger's death at Olympics

[bluedigger]

1. Well that's some bullshit.

If there isn't anything wrong with the track, why have they changed the men's starting point?

[Condem]

2. Great post.

Well done, steven. The design sucks. I think the Canadians tried at first to say he wasn't very good. Bad move.

[caraher]

3. It's like saying that the fall never kills you when you jump off building...

... only the sudden stop at the end of the fall.

The "G-force" experienced is proportional to the speed squared divided by the radius of the turn. Both of these are consequences of the design of the track.

"Although he attempted to correct the situation, he shot up into the roof of curve 16, the angle in which he did so resulted in him experiencing a G-force that literally collapsed his body rendering it difficult to control the sled, which in this case he was not able to do," FIL secretary general Svein Romstad said

In other words, they designed a track with a curve tight enough, near the end, that entering it slightly off-line at the design speed can result in a situation where an Olympic athlete lacks the strength to control the sled.

[joeybee12]

4. I wish I could rec this...I am so disgusted by the Canadian/IOC cover-up...

...thorough investigation my ass...and of course now they've padded the pole the kid ran into, not that it needed it of course, they say. Fuckers.