Died today on practise run at Whistler.

[Nebula]

No doubt.

[zerograv]

Anyone in auto-racing or with a grade 9 education could have told you that centrifugal motion causes things to go to the outside of a corner. Great place to put 12 steel columns and a 3 foot high guard wall.

[zerograv]

What will people *bleep* about when the Olympics are over? Geez.

When you have something relevant to say pertaining to the death of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, then by all means go ahead, but right now you come across as pretty ignorant.

[Nebula]

I already posted something relevant. The post you are commenting on was about the complaining, "Corporate greed, blah blah..."

A young man has died. Questions should be asked, but shooting from the hip and blaming something like this on corporate greed is just wrong.

[zerograv]

Oh sorry Nebula.

I understand where mrj222 is coming from. Questions must be answered and honestly, I hope its corporate greed because there is no excuse for the death of this young man. I believe it was 100% avoidable. Who in their right mind couldn't have the slightest notion that an accident might occur on the fastest and sharpest turn on the course? And like I said its pretty simple physics to suggest that the rider would be ejected to the outside of the corner when traveling at 130kph. I don't see why the wall wasn't 20 feet high instead of 3 feet, other than the sheer fact that it would interfere with media access to the fastest turn, and the finish line.

[Nebula]

I'm sure those questions will be asked in the coming days. I have to admit, after watching the accident (I'm going to have nightmares) and seeing that corner, the outside wall did seem to be rather low.

[Queen K]

I am so sad for the young man's family. They saw his dream come true to go to the Olympics and before the opening ceremony he dies. This is a huge loss.

[Transient]

As far as I'm concerned given the level of arrogance that I've witnessed first hand in that profession there should be an engineer(s) somewhere facing some charges pertaining to negligence.

Even an untrained average Joe wouldn't need a university degree to figure out that there are some impact zones to factor into the design which means for a professional engineer/designer this situation is despicable.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but let's face it... this is a dangerous sport and you could still be injured or killed wiping out while doing 140 km/h with practically no body protection.

My condolences to the athelete's family and the Georgian people.

[Captain Awesome]

An athlete from the Soviet just died at the scene after going over the wall and hit a pole.

Lady,

There's no such country as The Soviet. There never was too. The young guy was from Georgia. Not to be confused with State of Georgia (US).

[Carmencat]

There have been apparently a dozen accidents over the last few days of practise runs on this track. An (I think is was) Australian luger referred to the Olympic athletes as "Crash Test Dummies". This was yesterday. I think there is going to be alot to answer for.

[logicalview]

He chose to careen down a ice track at speeds of 150K's. No steering. No brakes. Wearing a helmut and a spandex suit.

You bet someone is going to be held accountable.

It's not as if he was a teenager walking along the side of a road hit by a truck and left for dead.

[Cumungala]

That was a smart move to put a metal pole near a corner where people will be sliding at high speeds. Perhaps they should insulate it to prevent something like this from happening during the actual Olympics.

[mrj222]

He chose to careen down a ice track at speeds of 150K's. No steering. No brakes. Wearing a helmut and a spandex suit.

You bet someone is going to be held accountable.

It's not as if he was a teenager walking along the side of a road hit by a truck and left for dead.

So the engineers who designed this course with careless disregard for the athletes safety are in no way responsible? Give me a break.

Accidents happen, crashes happen but this is at the very least an engineering screw up and could very well be corporate greed trying to save a few pennies.

[hellomynameis]

looks like the wall along the turn is a good 8-10 feet high and then it abruptly drops down to the afore mentioned 3 feet, it appears that he was ejected over the 3 foot portion.

Very tragic and it should be easily fixable.

I'm hesitant to outright blame the engineers without knowing how many tests and simulations were done and what degree of accuracy for these test/sims was even achievable before having the elite athletes bore down the track as fast as possible.

I guess that leaves open the claim that there should have been a larger margin of safety built into the track but, again, I'm hesitant to get on that bandwagon, perhaps it already was built in but reality has now shown it was inefficient.

Many comments on News websites claim that risk is just part of the sport and I agree to an extent, at the elite level of sport many possible safety mechanisms are eschewed because they come at the expense of the athletes performance. But I don't see how this could possibly be relevent in this particular case.

IMO, to start talking about how "greed" has some component in this tragedy is awfully premature.

[Captain Awesome]

Accidents happen, crashes happen but this is at the very least an engineering screw up and could very well be corporate greed trying to save a few pennies.

I'm sure there will be an investigation. But something tells me you're way out of line on this one.