Tragedy strikes the Olympics

Luger dies in 90mph crash in training in Vancouver: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/luge/8513595.stm

I've seen the track, it looks insane. You couldn't pay me enough money to slide down that. Or any other track for that matter.

And it was in Whistler, not Vancouver.

I thought that this was going to be about the lack of snow for the games.

Who's the genius that thought putting steel beams right next to a 150 km/h course was a good idea?

Here's the footage:

Link

Not for the faint hearted, don't know how long they'll leave it up.

It boggles my mind that they have bare metal poles right beside the track. Wow.

The IOC is getting the footage taken down pretty quickly. I saw it on the news when it first broke and the crash was so fast it's difficult to make out what happened.

Looking at it further, he was going so fast that he appears to crack the metal pole that brought him to a dead stop. I'm still pretty stunned they don't have any type of protection around those poles and that they're there in the first place.

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just have to wait for it to be all over youtube in an hour or so.

Liveleak has it and it probably will be up longer there if not forever: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ba_1266003820

HERE

Why do you care?

I'm an avid luger.

Of the ass?

No, that's more for the Bobsledders.

Ah...

Perhaps if it was at a place with real snow then the impact would have been lessened, some snow on the beam maybe ?

Guh? Whistler has "real snow".....been skiing on it for almost 30 years.

I think he was dead no matter what with those beams there.

Finally, my tax dollars kill a Russian.

I'm sure it can be statistically proven that you are safer on a luge than in your own automobile.

There still isn't enough booze in the world to get me into one of those fuckin' things.

I would get on one stone cold sober. It looks just awesome.

Someone or a group of someones dropped the ball big time with respect to safety here. There is NO EXCUSE for having those huge metal beams exposed in that way.

What an unnecessary waste of a life and what a huge embarrassment for the Olympic organizers.

That had to hurt.

I noticed on the vid I watched that when he entered the tunnel and curve just before the crash you can hear something....it almost sounds like something was dragging.

In case it wasn't one of the above ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYmK8gt9OwM

You guys talked me into watching that, Kind of wish I had not. At least it looks like it was quick for him. Yeah they could have left the beams but put up some plywood walls to keep him from leaving the track. That ain't worth a damn right there.

Briefly.

Our local news had the video and showed the entire clip. It looked brutal and painful.

last night i had to watch that vid like5 times on cbs plus the pics they took while trying to revive him...covered in blood...

*sigh* I actually cried....what a waste.

The wall was too low. In one of those still photos at live leak you can see the poor man's left ear was torn off. How horrific. The designer fucked up big time.