Sad news: Luger dies in crash | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Sad news: Luger dies in crash

Sk8n Mama

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
In a ruthless drive to increase Canada's medal count, the organizers deliberately built a course that is considered dangerous and difficult even by elite lugers, and then gave the Canadian athletes far more time and opportunity to practice on the course. And now this has gone beyond unsporting to inhuman. This taints whatever medals the Canadian athletes will win. There has been a lot of corruption and human rights violations with various Olympic games, but this stands out as one of the most disgusting things a host country has perpetrated.

I know people are (rightly) upset about this. The course is faster than the engineers felt it would be. After athletes felt it was too difficult it should have been re-engineered or moved to another track. However, these kinds of comments and conspiracy theories are highly offensive. You know nothing about The Canadian People if you think we would want athletes lives jeopardized for the sake of medals. I don't think I've read anything more offensive on Golden Skate in all my years here.
 
Last edited:

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
According to Sarah's and Drew's tweet: "MSNBC reports the Georgian delegation will withdraw from the Games."


so weird because I can't find it... guess we'll know in about 45 minutes when the opening ceremonies start.

Say what you will about IOC Chair/President Rogge, but I truly believe he has the games/athletes best interests at heart and that he does take this whole thing personally...
“Here you have a young athlete that lost his life in pursuing his passion,” Rogge added. “He had a dream to participate in the Olympic Games. He trained hard and he had this fatal accident. I have no words to say what we feel.”

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/35369187/ns/sports-olympic_sports/

still stating that they're still deciding whether or not to pull out (they being the Republic of Georgia)
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
However, these kinds of comments and conspiracy theories are highly offensive.

Still, this quote by the Canadian luge coach raises questions.

The Canadian luge team are chasing their first Olympic medal and have maximized home ice by completing hundreds of training runs [with many crashes] on the daunting 1.4km track, while sliders from other nations make do with a handful of practice runs.

It is a situation that has drawn criticism from some quarters, but Canadian luge coach Wolfgang Staudinger is making no excuses for trying to give his athletes the edge.

"There are a lot of rumors going around but from my position we would be stupid not to take advantage of home advantage and I wish we could have done a little more," he told reporters.
 

FlattFan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
I don't know him, yet I feel extremely sad. What would tantamount to a great honor for him, for his family is now a great tragedy. I hope his family receives all the support they need through this difficult time. :cry::cry:
I hope the Georgia team will participate in the game. Each individual should have an option to either opt out or participate. I don't think Nodar would want his teammate to not compete.
 
Last edited:

DesertRoad

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
I know people are (rightly) upset about this. The course is faster than the engineers felt it would be. After athletes felt it was too difficult it should have been re-engineered or moved to another track. However, these kinds of comments and conspiracy theories are highly offensive. You know nothing about The Canadian People if you think we would want athletes lives jeopardized for the sake of medals. I don't think I've read anything more offensive on Golden Skate in all my years here.

I am not the one to paint all Canadians under one brush. I would think and hope that most fair-minded Canadians, or really, anybody, would be outraged by this. However, that does not mean that no Canadian would ever be involved in something like this. Really, that suggestion is just absurd and inexplicable.

The facts are what they are. Athletes of all countries, even Canadian ones, have pointed out this course is one of the fastest and most dangerous in Olympic history. The Canadian coach himself conceded that Canadian athletes were given hundred more times to practice on this unusual and challenging course, while athletes and representatives from other countries have protested this unfair advantage. This is all on record. All of these things are intentional: the course design and the extra practice time for Canadian athletes. It's a deliberate attempt to give Canadian athletes a leg up in the various races. This isn't much of a conspiracy, it's just a blatantly engineered home advantage. I would merely think this unsportsmanlike, and nothing more, if it didn't 'cause a fatal accident. This is only the second time in Olympic history that someone has died in luging, the first being the debut of the sport in the Olympics in 1964. This was entirely unnecessary and the result of circumstances created by a small group of people who happen to be Canadian.

It behooves Canadians, those who truly believe in the value of human lives, to root out and condemn those among them who have other priorities. It does not become Canadians, or anybody, to defend those people instead in the name of national solidarity. No, this whole tragedy, caused by the negligence and ruthlessness of a small group of people does not make Canadians as a whole look better. But how it is handled may yet show what most Canadians are made of, and that they are the decent, fair-minded people that most people of the world are.
 
Last edited:

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
everything in that article seems to be more about how they got more TRAINING time, not on how it was designed for their advantage.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
^ I think the point is that it was designed to give an advantage to whoever got the most training time.

Oh! It's us!
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
even if it were teh slowest track in history and the easiest, they'd still have teh advantage - not by design but because they got in so many more training hours...


just because most ice rinks are either NHL or Olympic size, it still takes a skater several sessions on it to feel prepared/ready
 

DesertRoad

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
Actually, most of the article is about how dangerous and unusual the course is. No, the article doesn't go into the mindset of the people who designed or commissioned it. But unless you believe those people either don't know what they're doing, and are thus guilty of supreme negligence in dealing with a potentially dangerous sport, then they designed it to be exactly what it is: a course that even elite athletes have trouble acclimating to in a short time.
 

colleen o'neill

Medalist
Joined
Nov 3, 2006
Tonichelle ..exactly..and it's no more than any host team has done in the past.

CTV is doing some coverage right now ..apparently it is now believed the Goergian team will stay. They'll have a press conference, I believe following the opening ceremonies.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
it's amazing how someone can become an expert in someone's thinking by a short - and not very informative - article.

what you got out of the article, I couldn't find. It was about the Canadian coach telling everyone to suck it up, they get home court advantage boo-hoo to you... and yes that it's dangerous but that some Canadian sliders are okay with it... and that it is fast and dangerous so that the audience will "have a good show" which seems just as plausable as your conspiracy to kill off athletes, and a lot less sinister in nature. Which is what I'd rather hold on to at this point in time.
 

DesertRoad

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
Tonichelle ..exactly..and it's no more than any host team has done in the past.

CTV is doing some coverage right now ..apparently it is now believed the Goergian team will stay. They'll have a press conference, I believe following the opening ceremonies.

Again, it's been on record by Canadian athletes and coaches themselves that no other Olympic host country has created a course this difficult or dangerous. And again, this is the second luge fatality in the Olympics, ever, since 1964. This was not business as usual, nor can it be equivocated away by blithely saying "everybody else does it, too".

it's amazing how someone can become an expert in someone's thinking by a short - and not very informative - article.

what you got out of the article, I couldn't find. It was about the Canadian coach telling everyone to suck it up, they get home court advantage boo-hoo to you... and yes that it's dangerous but that some Canadian sliders are okay with it... and that it is fast and dangerous so that the audience will "have a good show" which seems just as plausable as your conspiracy to kill off athletes, and a lot less sinister in nature. Which is what I'd rather hold on to at this point in time.

Your conjectures of innocent motivations are fine and good, but the results speak for themselves, in grim silence. And really, you didn't read all the quotes in the article about how dangerous the course is? Let me quote them for you then:

Ominously nicknamed 50-50, the corner is already being identified as the place where medals in the sliding events could be won and lost and egos -- and flesh -- could take a battering.

...

"I've crashed at 13 three times in training," Canadian slider Ian Cockerline told Reuters on Tuesday"

...

"If you get turn 12 right you can get through 13 nice and smooth and don't feel it, but if you don't it spells trouble."

Ya know, that's actually just the first three paragraphs. And despite all that, all you got out of it is that other athletes should "suck it up"? How about their surviving families, should they just "suck it up"?
 
Last edited:

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
so it's not in your thinking to assume they want to see some world and olympic records broken with really fast times? that's what I was thinking was the cause of them creating the dang thing when the report first broke...

but then I'm not a believer in the second shooter on the grassy knoll, and I do like the idea that man has actually stepped foot on the moon...
 

Tinymavy15

Sinnerman for the win
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
What a terrible way to start tha games. I felt just sick when I first heard this. My prayers go out to the poor man's family and teamates.
 

DesertRoad

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
so it's not in your thinking to assume they want to see some world and olympic records broken with really fast times? that's what I was thinking was the cause of them creating the dang thing when the report first broke...

but then I'm not a believer in the second shooter on the grassy knoll, and I do like the idea that man has actually stepped foot on the moon...

So you concede that this course is fast and dangerous, that someone actually designed it that way, and that Canadian athletes were given extra time to acclimate to it. And those are all the facts I posit myself. Whether it is negligence or malice, and it can that caused one fatal injuries and many other accidents, I leave to what I hope is a thorough investigation.

Perhaps we have a different understanding of culpability. If one were to create a potentially fatal setup knowingly or otherwise, then subject someone in one's trust to that situation with fatal results, then one certainly is guilty of negligence, if not worse. That some people in charge created this to gain an unfair advantage for their compatriots certainly makes the whole thing more despicable. But even if they didn't, and Canadian athletes were given no extra time on the track, something went horribly awry here with the people in charge of safeguarding the safety of the athletes.
 
Last edited:

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
So you concede that this course is fast and dangerous, that someone actually designed it that way, and that Canadian athletes were given extra time to acclimate to it.

I 'concede'... no, I'm not giving into your argument. those points were never in question. you are bringing up this idea that Canada is somehow 'out to get' the rest of the teams so as to win medals, which I find incorrect in the article you used to prove your point.

It's the villifying of a group of engineers/maintainers/whatever that I disagree with.
 

shine

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
In a ruthless drive to increase Canada's medal count, the organizers deliberately built a course that is considered dangerous and difficult even by elite lugers, and then gave the Canadian athletes far more time and opportunity to practice on the course. And now this has gone beyond unsporting to inhuman. This taints whatever medals the Canadian athletes will win. There has been a lot of corruption and human rights violations with various Olympic games, but this stands out as one of the most disgusting things a host country has perpetrated.
Wow, how offensive and insulting can one get?
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Ya know, that's actually just the first three paragraphs. And despite all that, all you got out of it is that other athletes should "suck it up"? How about their surviving families, should they just "suck it up"?

and yet the opening paragraph is one that the author wrote - not a Canadian official or coach... the only things I read from Canadians were those saying that 'yes teh course is dangerous' 'yes we got more practice time' and yeah, basically suck it up.

these were comments before the death, and to try and make it so that I sound like I'm for the death of an athlete is absurd.
 
Top