Update from AOL.com:
Olympic officials decided late Friday night against any major changes in the track or any delays in competition and even doubled up on the schedule in the wake of the horrifying accident that claimed the life of a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia.
In a joint statement they said Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate. “This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident.”
Men lugers, who were scheduled to finish training Friday morning, will get two extra practice runs Saturday. Women will train four hours later than scheduled. Men’s competition will be held later in the day as planned.
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From AOL.com:
“So this is what the Olympics have become, a dateline for a death sport. It wasn’t enough for organizers to build a safe, practical sliding track on Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler. No, they had to design a $105 million monster that turned the luge into a joyride to hell, with wicked turns, a 152-meter drop — the world’s longest — and a surface so rapid that it lured racers to approach 95 mph.
“Too fast. Too dangerous. And too deadly for a mere sled — basically, a missile upon which a human being slides face-up and feet-first, vulnerable to his immediate demise.
“All week, there have been crashes on the course, more than a dozen in total, one that left a Romanian athlete unconscious for a brief time. … Nevermind that 15 months ago, when the sport’s elite racers familiarized themselves with the Whistler Sliding Center, athletes suffered 73 crashes during training runs. ..
“‘I think they are pushing it a little too much. To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies?’ [Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg ] said. ‘I mean, this is our lives.'”
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