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Pinished
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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Horrific.
Looks like negligence to me on the part of the track builder. They have steel poles right alongside the track with nothing to prevent just such a foreseeable accident.
The Van Olympics seem to be a disaster all around.
Related:
Luge must be shut down after tragedy
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
VANCOUVER � With the crash that killed Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during a Friday morning training run, just hours before the Olympic torch was to be lit here, the Vancouver Games need to take immediate steps to assure the safety of its athletes.
It can start by canceling the luge competition altogether unless the track can be reconstructed to prevent wicked speeds from putting athletes at risk.
Kumaritashvili, 21, lost control of his sled during a practice session at the Whistler Sliding Centre. He violently caromed off of two of the track�s walls before being tossed in the air, where he spun until hitting a metal support pole. He was rushed to a local hospital, but it was too late.
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.�
Campbell-Pegg�s words should haunt these Games.
News of the death Friday reached the downtown torch relay and cast a pall on the run-up to the Opening Ceremony. It needs to force the International Olympic Committee and the local organizing committee to immediately rededicate these Games to safety.
more at link |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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This is a terrible tragedy.
I think these guys compete in this sport (and these types of sports), in the full knowledge that physical harm is a distinct possibility. Someone outlined that normal tracks are 80m/h whilst this track can reach up to 100m/h. What is the difference? If you crash at 50m/h you are in for a world of hurt. Even at its safest, sports where you travel at fast speeds or crash into other people, have the potential for bodily harm. In all honesty I believe this to be part of the attraction for these athletes.
We can moralize all we want, but at the end of the day, these athletes willingly put themselves in harms way. They can either choose to play the game or opt out. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:41 am Post subject: |
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| Senior wrote: |
We can moralize all we want, but at the end of the day, these athletes willingly put themselves in harms way. They can either choose to play the game or opt out. |
You're saying that because it's a dangerous sport then no measures should be taken to reduce unnecessary risks?
If you bungee jump and hit the ground, then that's acceptable because bungee jumping is a dangerous sport? |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| Senior wrote: |
| Someone outlined that normal tracks are 80m/h whilst this track can reach up to 100m/h. What is the difference? If you crash at 50m/h you are in for a world of hurt. |
Speed affects a lot of factors - momentum, for example. It's possible that if he had been traveling at a lower speed then he might have stayed on the track. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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However tragic it pales in comparison to the offensive in Afghanistan launched on the very same day as his death - all the mayhem that will be unleashed.
I find it even more tragic that nobody in the universe seems to notice what an outrage this is -- first in the name of what the games stand for and all the preaching the IOC and Olympic committees did this year about "peace" - the IOC even getting observer status at the UN. Second, how hypocritical given our own boycott of Moscow in 1980 (and let's not forget all the Georgians who died there while the Olympic flame burned)
It is all a farce and we are all clowns in this deadly circus. Bread and circuses - this year Vancouver, next month somewhere near you....
Even consider these two recent Shrub comments on the Olympics AND the fight in Afghanistan. Treated with the same unnoticed disdain for life.
1. "It's gotta be really exciting, thinking about marching in that stadium and representing our country,"
2. �I must say, I�m a little envious,� �It must be exciting for you � in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You�re really making history, and thanks,�
DD
http://eflclassroom.com |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
However tragic it pales in comparison to the offensive in Afghanistan launched on the very same day as his death - all the mayhem that will be unleashed.
I find it even more tragic that nobody in the universe seems to notice what an outrage this is -- first in the name of what the games stand for and all the preaching the IOC and Olympic committees did this year about "peace" - the IOC even getting observer status at the UN. Second, how hypocritical given our own boycott of Moscow in 1980 (and let's not forget all the Georgians who died there while the Olympic flame burned)
It is all a farce and we are all clowns in this deadly circus. Bread and circuses - this year Vancouver, next month somewhere near you....
Even consider these two recent Shrub comments on the Olympics AND the fight in Afghanistan. Treated with the same unnoticed disdain for life.
1. "It's gotta be really exciting, thinking about marching in that stadium and representing our country,"
2. �I must say, I�m a little envious,� �It must be exciting for you � in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You�re really making history, and thanks,�
DD
http://eflclassroom.com |
dd dude. People like you are what give left-wingers a bad name. Talk about tasteless. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| Senior wrote: |
We can moralize all we want, but at the end of the day, these athletes willingly put themselves in harms way. They can either choose to play the game or opt out. |
You're saying that because it's a dangerous sport then no measures should be taken to reduce unnecessary risks?
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Of course not. Don't be silly. The organizers absolutely have the responsibility to insure the athletes safety as much as they can.
What I'm saying is the risk is part of the attraction for these athletes. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| Senior wrote: |
| Someone outlined that normal tracks are 80m/h whilst this track can reach up to 100m/h. What is the difference? If you crash at 50m/h you are in for a world of hurt. |
Speed affects a lot of factors - momentum, for example. It's possible that if he had been traveling at a lower speed then he might have stayed on the track. |
Thanks for the science lesson. Why didn't he slow down then? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Senior wrote: |
| We can moralize all we want, but at the end of the day, these athletes willingly put themselves in harms way. They can either choose to play the game or opt out. |
No. These guys have been training for years for the Olympics, their ultimate goal. They have been training on tracks that went up to 80km/hr. Suddenly, if they want to achieve their lifelong dream and actually compete there, they must do so at speeds never before experienced. They certainly have a right to know that the track is properly designed and that they should not have to just randomly throw their life-or-death fate to mere luck. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:12 am Post subject: |
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I guarantee that most of the competitors in this sport would say "The faster the better", when it comes to track speed. Isn't speed kind of the point? And as I said earlier, risk is a huge attraction for these types of people. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Well, at least some athletes and officials are trying to link the death to Canada's allegedly giving inadequate practice time to foreign competitors...
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In normal times perhaps, but in the run-up to these games, the hosts � or at least the Canadian Olympic Committee � seemed to have mislaid their manners. "Own the podium," it implored its athletes in an initiative aimed at ensuring the host nation finishes at the top of the medals table at these games. Money has been poured into training, while a hard-edged approach has been adopted in dealing with other teams, most noticeably in granting them only limited access to facilities such as the sliding track.
Such behaviour is within the Olympic rules, but it came across as distinctly un-Canadian at the time, and in the context of Friday's death it seemed like a terrible misjudgment. Steven Holcomb of the US bobsleigh team said: "This track is one of the fastest and most difficult in the world, so I think keeping it closed and not letting people have access� made it very difficult. Then you have Olympic ice, which is even faster. Little mistakes become big mistakes, and big mistakes end in tragedy.''
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Yet if the formalities of Olympic diplomacy required the minister to leave it at that, so sparing the feelings of the hosts, Holcomb felt no such compunction. "They limited the amount of access and training time we had on the track, while they let Canadians train on it as much as they wanted," he said. "There were smaller nations that have never been down here before. It is kind of unfair and now it is a tragedy.'' So much for the Olympic dream.
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I don't know enough about this particular sport to know how much truth there could be in these speculations. Nevertheless, that's what some people have been saying.
The Guardian |
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kabrams
Joined: 15 Mar 2008
Location: your Dad's house
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| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
However tragic it pales in comparison to the offensive in Afghanistan launched on the very same day as his death - all the mayhem that will be unleashed.
I find it even more tragic that nobody in the universe seems to notice what an outrage this is -- first in the name of what the games stand for and all the preaching the IOC and Olympic committees did this year about "peace" - the IOC even getting observer status at the UN. Second, how hypocritical given our own boycott of Moscow in 1980 (and let's not forget all the Georgians who died there while the Olympic flame burned)
It is all a farce and we are all clowns in this deadly circus. Bread and circuses - this year Vancouver, next month somewhere near you....
Even consider these two recent Shrub comments on the Olympics AND the fight in Afghanistan. Treated with the same unnoticed disdain for life.
1. "It's gotta be really exciting, thinking about marching in that stadium and representing our country,"
2. �I must say, I�m a little envious,� �It must be exciting for you � in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You�re really making history, and thanks,�
DD
http://eflclassroom.com |
DD...what the heck. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 4:53 am Post subject: |
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Oh, the driver was human, so that explains it! It's cool then that he smashed into one of many large, unpadded steel columns constructed immediately adjacent to the track where they'd be hurling themselves down at ungodly speeds. 
That is a really thoughtless excuse. |
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