Tragedy at the Vancouver Olympics

Georgian luge slider Nodar Kumaritashvili died after a high-speed crash during the final training run for the men’s singles event at the Winter Olympics. It was the first death of an athlete at the Olympics in 18 years.

Kumaritashvili, 21, was thrown off his sled and collided with an unpadded metal support beam outside the track today. In video replays of the crash, Kumaritashvili appeared to hit his head on the pole and lay motionless after contact. 

In the luge event, athletes lie on their back on a sled and race down an icy mountain chute. They wear helmets but virtually no other padding.

The Whistler luge course includes 16 turns and a 498-foot drop, the longest of any track in the world. It already had prompted safety concerns from competitors during training runs.“I think they are pushing it a little too much,” Australia’s Hannah Campbell-Pegg told the Associated Press last night 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.” 

Austria’s Manuel Pfister reached a speed of 154 kilometers per hour (95 miles an hour) yesterday, the fastest run ever recorded by a luger at Whistler’s sliding center, where bobsled and skeleton races also are run.

The first luge event, the men’s singles preliminary run, is scheduled for tomorrow, the first full day of the 21st Winter Olympics.

The Georgia team may withdraw from the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the head of the country's delegation told Reuters.  Here is a good Maclean's article about the whole thing:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/02/12/a-dark-cloud-over-vanocs-olympic-sized-party