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actyperactyper
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Nodar Kumaritashvili Crash VIDEO: Winter Olympics Luge Slider DEAD (PHOTOS)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia(AP)—The IOC has confirmed that a men’s Olympic luger from the country of Georgia has died after a crash during training.

The International Olympic Committee says doctors were unable to revive Nodar Kumaritashvili, and the 21-year-old died at a hospital.

IOC president Jacques Rogge says the death “clearly casts a shadow over these games.”

Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled Friday, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center.

Comments

  • HobbesHobbes
    Sick
    Crash vid
  • Hellmuth's MoleHellmuth's Mole
    actyper wrote: »
    Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled Friday, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center.


    Incredibly sad and yet how the fuck could it happen? Unpadded steel pole within flying distance of the track? Stupidity.
  • WaterLooserWaterLooser
    Padded or not, @ 144kph you are dead either way. That kind of impact is just too much for a body to handle.
  • MiloMilo
    The Olympic track is the newest, most difficult, and fastest track in the world. There have been fears about this happening right from the first run on its surface. Ironically, this accident occured in an area that was not considered a high risk zone.

    The only thing I can see them doing to alleviate risk is to eliminate the pawing that Lugers do at the start of the run. That will give them less inertia, and thus a slower acceleration throughout their run.
  • HobbesHobbes
    They may be able to do something about the 1st 2 turns. They are wide and the lugers can build up quite a bit of speed.

    Some Austrian hit 150kph on a training run.
  • MiloMilo
    Where did you hear that? I would think that involves altering the structure of the course, which seems like it would be more than a few hours/days work.

    My thinking was (numbers out of my ass, of course), if eliminating the pawing costs 10% of their initial speed, that should translate to 10% lower speeds at the bottom. So 150kph becomes 135kph . . . not a huge difference, but it could be enough to make the course reasonable.
  • HobbesHobbes
    Not sure if they would have enough time nor how much work would be involved. But Global was reporting the 1st 2 turns were wide and built up a lot of speed. So it makes sense that those turns tighter would decrease speeds
  • MiloMilo
    Not necessarily . . . it would depend on the entry and exit path to each corner, sort of like sling shotting a turn in auto racing, you follow?

    To slow everything down they could soften the ice surface over the entire course, or maybe dull the runners on all sleds a uniform amount. I think anything they do would compromise the event in some way. Not sure what's worse.

    Not to be a prude, but can we please delete that video? The poor bastard died . . . no need to be ghoulish about it.
  • DrTyoreDrTyore
    I almost guarantee...

    This video will be viewed more than most of the events of the game. This is the reason most people WATCH the crazy sports (ski jump / luge / skeleton / etc) to see someone take a wipeout.

    Mark
  • MiloMilo
    Wipeout . . . sure. I love to see athletes push the boundaries of what is possible in their respective sports. When they do, accidents happen.

    Die? Not me . . . and, unless I see it live, I try to avoid watching it later.

    I have seen several people die on TV over the years. There is the, "oh shit, that was bad . . ." accident, where you know the person could not have survived. There is also the, "WTF?!?" accident, where you are stunned to hear the victim died.
    Every time I have seen it happen it casts a pall over everything. It took me three years to go back to watching F1 after watching Gilles Villeneuve die in Belgium, all those years ago.

    That being said, I admit that I will still be watching the adrenaline sports at the Games during the next two weeks.
  • BrennerMBrennerM
    Looks like the men will be starting from the women's start, taking about 10km/h off their top speeds. They've also added a huge wall where the crash occurred...nobody will be leaving the track at that spot because the wall will bounce them back onto the track.
  • BBC ZBBC Z
    I couldn't believe that CTV opened their olympic preshow with the video, and then replayed it in slow-motion.. Then replayed it again once the opening ceremonies were over.. at the time, they said that the video HAD to be shown as it was such an integral part of the story.. except that it's a day later, and now when they show the story, the cut the physical gore of the crash... So which was it? Required or optional? garbage.
  • MiloMilo
    BBC Z wrote: »
    I couldn't believe that CTV opened their olympic preshow with the video, and then replayed it in slow-motion.. Then replayed it again once the opening ceremonies were over.. at the time, they said that the video HAD to be shown as it was such an integral part of the story.. except that it's a day later, and now when they show the story, the cut the physical gore of the crash... So which was it? Required or optional? garbage.

    Yup, men are using the women's starting gate, and are complaining that it is too slow . . . so much for our dangerous track.
  • kwstevekwsteve
    For me, the video was hard to watch. The worst part was the sound made when he hit the column. Just sickening. You knew right away, no way he is surviving that.
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