^ what a mindfuck that would be.

Skeleton and luge are some of the most extreme shit you can do imo. It's just between you and the board you are laying on.

They arent thinking of anything..
There is a saying "look where you wanna go.. not where you dont wanna go"..
Anyone that cant get this out of their head should just drop out.. They are more a risk to themself if they are thinking about this while going down the track.
I know its an asshole thing to say but pretty much the mentality that they need to have is that it was that guys fault for being inexperienced. This competition is really gonna be psychological.. Whoever has the most control over their brain will win..

heard on the radio that they move the men's starting line to the women's starting line, thus slowing the whole course including that final turn.

That's a very good point. But I don't think it was his inexperience with the track that killed him. If you watch the video, it actually looks like he clips something when he comes up the other side, just before he's thrown off.

Either way, something went wrong and someone paid the ultimate price.

Agreed on the amount of balls and mental control it must take to do this stuff, there's no way you could get me to dive on a sled in only a spandex suit and do 150km/h down a curved track with no brakes.

I think solid plexi would be best, you don't want it to flex out and then spring you back off the inside of the track. The impact with said wall of plexi wouldn't be that bad, nor your body falling back down to the track, it's slick ice so the impact would be the same as normally falling only a few feet. The vertical or side to side speed isn't the issue here, the problem was that his body went from 150km/h forward to 0km/h forward. You'd be pretty much fine sliding up a plexiglass wall and falling back down into the track, then sliding to a stop a ways down.

this really sucks, even /b/ is all over him now

My god, this happens and then suddenly everyone is an Safety Engineering expert. WTF?

Hard to watch. RIP.

Let's examine all the possibilities as logically as possible without dumbass 20/20 outbursts like "They should have put padding!"

1. Situation as it is. Obviously we know the outcome.
2. Padding. Nothing would have changed. Odds are you can't even survive a 144km/h CAR accident.
3. No beams - Would have flung out and landed on concrete/skinned him alive
4. Higher wall - Still would have flung out and been seriously injured/killed.

Some sports are inherently dangerous. The only consolation this guy had is at least it was virtually instant death, compared to a lifetime of suffering if he had 'survived'.

Of COURSE the engineers do simulations. However it's like modelling a car accident that can happen at any time. Impossible to control all variables.

If you looked at crashing lugers at this turn, there are nearly an infinite different ways the outcome of the crash could have turned out.

Right before the beams, I noticed there was a slight turn on the wall which he bumped into as he was sliding along the wall. If that bend wasn't there I wonder if he would've hit the beam at all...probably his legs. But then again the outcome would be just as bad.

Rest in Peace...

K that formula was me in my tired mode. But regardless. That pillow would of done shit all. Why don't you go jump off a bridge thats 600m above water. Water is soft right? To be effective you'd need like 8000000 pillows to be able to even walk away.

I agree, padding on the post would have done nothing.

What would have done something is a taller wall, which they ended up figuring out had to be put in.

I don't like how the Woman luge is starting from the Junior position. I think luge and skeleton for both men and woman should start from the shorten track, while bobsled starts from the upper position.

Georgians thank Canadians for their compassion following luge death

http://www.vancouversun.com/Georgian...616/story.html

The changes made to the track were done to appease the general public, media, athletes and other mourners.

It's a 2 year old course with no fatalities.
Fast? Yes.
Dangerous? Not for the experienced.
Accidents happen.

There was nothing wrong with the track or it's design. I can appreciate why they made the changes to it but also feel that shortening it almost 200M on top of adding the new wall was a little much.

clearly it is a dangerous track if someone dies on it.. And why the hell did they want to make it the fastest track in the world? for bragging rights? that was a retarded decision.

Safety of the track was in question by alot of experienced Luger:

"I think they are pushing it a little too much," [Hannah] Campbell-Pegg said. "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."



"American luger Tony Benshoof told NBC: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."
[...]
"There is a human limit," says Canadian luge coach and former German doubles medalist Wolfgang Staudinger. "I hope we don't increase the speed of our tracks. Whistler is on the limit."

http://deadspin.com/5470753/tracks-s...re-fatal-crash


Just because the luge was 21 when he died didn't mean he was inexperienced:

""But the argument that Kumaritashvili wasn't really good enough to tackle such a fast layout was rejected by Saakashvili.

“Look, much more decorated sportsmen, as well, have seen the problem,” he said. “This sport of luge, I have found out, is a matter of experience, and it's like Formula One, you need to have experience accumulate with years.

“Having said that … Nodar was a very rapidly progressing sportsman. The last result he showed he was 12th in training. That's a very high result. He came here on merit. He had to go through international competition, he was at this place before – so the last thing you can blame this on is inexperience.”

Kumaritashvili's father and uncle were both lugers, and his uncle was a coach of the French team. His hometown of Borjomi, Saakashvili said, was once the training centre for the entire Soviet Olympic team. And though facilities there have largely been destroyed by war, he said, “I don't think his uncle would have put him at risk if he had not been sure what kind of training and preparation he had gone through.”"

http://www.vancouversun.com/Georgian...616/story.html

Understandably so, this event held back a fellow luger from Georgia from competition.
Instead of competing in an event on the track today (where he was officially stated on the score sheet), he left flowers on the curve 16 and left the Olympics. Such a sad sad event, RIP.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/news-centr...rs+friend+cant