Yet More About The Luge

Well, my concerns about the luge events in Vancouver have been stimulated even more when I find out more about shenanigans at the Whistler Sliding Centre. I watched the finals of the luge at the week-end but i didn't see every run. One, by the very experienced Stefan Hoehener [above], came very close to repeating the death crash of Nodar Kumaritashvili, when the Swiss luger had all but parted company with his sled as he rushed towards the final bend. He managed to hang on and just about avoided another bad crash. He was out of the running for medals, of course, but many in the IOC and the FIL will have breathed a very deep sigh of relief that we had not had another catastrophe on this apparently satisfactory slide. They cannot say that Hoehener lacked experience; he is 29 years old and has been a luger for more than 10 years.
It has been reported by the American Team Captain, Ron Rossi, that one of his team, Meg Sweeney came very close to having exactly the same accident as Kumaritashvili when she crashed at the 16th bend during practice two days before the unfortunate Georgian. Luckily, said Rossi, she didn't go quite so high up the wall - but then she started lower down the slope - as did Hoehener. The start point for men during the actual competition had been moved 200 m further down the slide in order to slow everyone down and yet a very experienced luger nearly came to grief. Another little revelation about this unproblematic slide was that the curve of the ice had been altered at bend. In the light of all this, surely it is staggering that the officials dared to suggest that Kumaritashvili was responsible for his own death.
The goings-on at Whistler have told us much about the sham of the Olympics. The Canadians have had up to ten times more practice time on this slide compared with the visitors, in order to give them an advantage over all the bloody foreigners and help Canada maximise medal winnings on home territory. Many visiting teams have complained but to no avail. After all, the Canadians revealed, they have put a lot of money in to ensuring Canadian wins and everything has to be done to make sure they succeeded. But now they are complaining that the modifications to the course - by altering the ice curvature and moving the staring point by 200 metres - have effectively wiped out their advantage. "There is a lot of money invested", said Canadian Ian Cockerline. "It's really what it comes down to in the end." James Lawton in The Independent thought there was no bleaker epitaph for the fallen Olymian. It is difficult to disagree.
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