Vancouver 2010 Has Most Challenging Luge Course - and Possibly Most Dangerous

"[T]he athlete came late out of curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into curve 16. 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," says the official statement of VANOC and the International Luge Federation.

The track was to be open for training as of this morning, and the men's singles competition will take place Saturday evening as scheduled.

Inexperience, Lack of Access to the Track

A combination of weather conditions, track speed and inexperience - in general as a luger, and on this specific track as well - has been cited in speculating what caused the tragedy.

Georgian Minister of Sport Niloas Rurua refused to speculate as to whether more practice time on the track could have saved Kumaritashvili's life. The Georgian team had practised on the track for a month prior the accident.

It has also been noted that even very experienced athletes find the Whistler course difficult. On Friday morning, defending Olympic champion Armin Zoeggeler got caught on a turn and flipped his sled. Canadian athletes, who had first crack at the track, have had their share of worries. Melissa Hollingsworth has crashed several times. Doubles luger Chris Moffatt compares the Vancouver course to the one where the Canadians train in Calgary. Moffatt says at Calgary the course is slower and athletes have time to "get comfortable in our sleds." He went on, "Whistler comes at you like a freight train."

Fast, Dangerous Track

The 1,450m track for Vancouver's Winter Olympics is acknowledged to be the longest and fastest in the world - about 20 kilometres an hour faster than originally intended. It features sixteen turns over a course with a 152 m drop - again more than the planned 149 m - equivalent to 48 storeys.

The track was used for 2,500 runs during an international training week, said an FIL spokesman. It has a 3 percent crash rate. Because of a complicated design that places some of the tighter turns near the bottom of the track, athletes are in greater than normal danger, in an area of the course generally considered to be a safer zone. One would imagine this makes the course challenging for experienced athletes, as well as newer ones. But for those with less experience it may just be too dangerous.

Kumaritashvili was travelling at a speed of 144.3 km/h when he crashed. FIL spokesman Wolfgang Harder was already expressing concerns about the speed of the track, before Kumaritashvili's fatal crash. When Manuel Phister set a luge speed record of 154 km/hr on Thursday, Harder said future luge tracks would have to be built with speed limits, for the athletes' safety. The planners for the 2014 Sochi Games have been warned that these extremely high speeds are unacceptable.

Safety Adjustments

Although the track has been declared safe some adjustments have been made. The wall near the end of the track where Kumaritashvili crashed has been built up higher, and the ice profile has been changed. Men will also start lower on the track, at the women's start position. The sliding track is used for luge, bobsled and skeleton events, all of which appear to be on schedule at the moment.

Sources:

"Joint VANOC - FIL Statement on Men's Luge Competition" Vancouver 2010 web site

"Luge track declared safe following fatal crash" Allan Maki and Jeff Blair (The Globe and Mail)

"Officials delay reopening of sliding track" Canadian Press

"Olympic luger killed in horrifying 144 km/h crash" Reuters (Montreal Gazette)

"Track is too fast, says head of luge federation" Jason Botchford (Canwest News)