We just watched it on the news. very sad. I cringed when I watched the accident. Apparently a few others have crashed but not seriously injured, something is not right with the course is my guess.
So bummed about that. I love the Olympics and hate it when the athletes get hurt. This is horrible. They say the track is really intense. I almost don't want to watch the sled races.
A lot of people are suggesting that those poles be cushioned somehow. I'm not sure it would help. They say he was going 90 mph when he hit it-- all the cushioning in the world won't do you any good at that rate of speed. What an incredibly sad event in the midst of such joy and anticipation.
CNN is saying that most of the athletes think the course is a little too intense. At some point an average course will level off a bit but this one keeps going downhill. The record was broken there and I think they said the new record was 95MPH when the last one had been 88MPH. Generally you don't break a record by that large of a difference. They expect that someone will break 100 MPH this Olympics, but many are not happy with the course.
Instead of padding the poles, my husband said that it might be a good idea to curve the sides inward at the top, sort of making a tube-shape that's open at the top. The bigger curves have that sort of side to prevent lugers from slipping up and over the side. Why can't that feature be extended to the end of the course? If I were a luger in the Olympics right now, I think that I'd opt out unless and until they adjusted this track. No medal is worth my life.
They have started training runs on the course today. The men are now starting from the women's start point; they anticipate that top speeds will be reduced by about 15 km/hr. This change means that race preparations by the athletes will need to change considerably, most particularly because the start will be so different. A couple of other modifications have been made to the course--extending a wall on one curve and modifying the edge on another.
