2010 Vancouver Olympics

[Crew2323]

How idiotic is it to have steel beams exposed like that? I have absolutely no knowledge of Luging (if that's even how you spell it or say it), but did anyone think to put fiberglass up in that area, like that which you see around hockey rinks? At the very worst the lugers would be protected from impacting exposed steel beams at 90 mph, and instead slide on the ice. How horrible and tragic.

 

It seems to me that these Winter Olympics are turning out to be a bit of an embarrassment for Vancouver, and Canada in general when you consider the lack of snow, the malfunction at the Opening Ceremony, and this tragic and perhaps preventable death of a young man.

 

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the Georgian luger.

[thebruce44]

I watched the Opening Ceremony until they interviewed Shaun White about snowboarding tricks. I mean, a guy DIED today, and we're supposed to enjoy hearing White laugh about his halfpipe tricks? I had to turn it off at that point.

 

Should they cancel the games? I can understand being upset the footage was shown (I haven't actually seen it) but there are other events and the games are about a lot more than one person however tragic his passing may be.

 

The White interview was really interesting to me, as he has basically been the best at his sport for years and has won everything. He expects to win every time he suits up, and when he does its almost routine. That being said, he was balling 4 years ago when he won the gold.

 

Also, count me in as someone who is excited for the midnight curling. I got hooked on that sport when I was up in Banff during the Brier a couple years back. Prince Edward island really stuck it to Labrador that year.

[bjkrautk]

How idiotic is it to have steel beams exposed like that? I have absolutely no knowledge of Luging (if that's even how you spell it or say it), but did anyone think to put fiberglass up in that area, like that which you see around hockey rinks? At the very worst the lugers would be protected from impacting exposed steel beams at 90 mph, and instead slide on the ice. How horrible and tragic.

It wouldn't seem to make much of a difference to me. I'm hardly a physics major, but I don't think it's the density of the material that the luge-r runs into....so much as the decelleration from 90mph to 0mph on impact which causes the damage.

 

Are we really that surprised that Luge is dangerous, by the way? The entire sport is based around the trade-off between speed and control over a series of sharp turns. That it doesn't happen more often is a testament to the athletes competing. There's a reason they call the face-first version "skeleton" after all.

[TooLiveBrew]

Should they cancel the games? I can understand being upset the footage was shown (I haven't actually seen it) but there are other events and the games are about a lot more than one person however tragic his passing may be.

 

Of course not -- where did I say anything even close to resembling that? I just stated my own personal reason for turning off the broadcast. You don't have to like or agree with it.

[NeedMoreFans]

The men's alpine event was postponed today due to poor conditions at Whistler. They were saying this was a bad year for snow out there. If they keep having poor conditions, how are they going to get the events in?

[strawbossisevil]

It wouldn't seem to make much of a difference to me. I'm hardly a physics major, but I don't think it's the density of the material that the luge-r runs into....so much as the decelleration from 90mph to 0mph on impact which causes the damage.

I'm guessing you haven't seen the video. Having a plexiglass wall (or better yet, a padded wall) would not cause him to go from 90 mph to 0 mph on impact. It would absorb some of the impact and send him back in the direction of the ice. A steel beam, however, would and did stop all of his forward progress in an instant.

 

You think the Olympics would have learned from the last time somebody died on the luge when they flew off the ice and hit a tree.

 

Putting a series of steel posts right outside a turn with nothing to cover them up has to be one of the most stupid construction decisions I've seen.

[Buckylovesbeer]

Cant wait, as many others have already stated, for curling. What a great event to watch......I would love to try it some time.

 

Anyone ever gone out to Utah and paid to ride the bobsled track? I heard its like $40, but you have to sign a waiver because of the dangers involved.

 

I may be in the minority, but I could care less about Shaun White. I cant stand the fact that we have athletes who are stone broke and paying their own ways to get to the olympics, and then we have guys like White who make millions. That makes me kind of sad.

 

The ice hockey tourney looks to be pretty awesome as well.

[NeedMoreFans]

I may be in the minority, but I could care less about Shaun White. I

cant stand the fact that we have athletes who are stone broke and paying

their own ways to get to the olympics, and then we have guys like White

who make millions. That makes me kind of sad.

Then you shouldn't like the hockey tournament!

 

I may be in the minority, but I would like to see professional athletes removed from Olympic competition. I'd much rather see a bunch of college players go play instead of pros (like the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" team). No other sport in the Olympics allows pros, so why should hockey and basketball be any different?

[Jimbo]

Anyone ever gone out to Utah and paid to ride the bobsled track? I heard its like $40, but you have to sign a waiver because of the dangers involved.

I'm aware of it, but I've haven't been in the Utah area the last eight years. Laugh if you wish, but it's on my "to do" list of things in life.

 

 

[Buckylovesbeer]

well played NMF. There are a lot of rich hockey players.

 

I wouldnt mind seeing all non-pro players, but I think the Dream Team killed that.

[strawbossisevil]

---

Buckylovesbeer]Anyone ever gone out to Utah and paid to ride the bobsled track? I heard its like $40, but you have to sign a waiver because of the dangers involved.

It's $200, but you can do the skeleton for $50 (from the tourist start, which I imagine is not the place the Olympians begin the race). Link.

[thebruce44]

Should they cancel the games? I can understand being upset the footage was shown (I haven't actually seen it) but there are other events and the games are about a lot more than one person however tragic his passing may be.

 

Of course not -- where did I say anything even close to resembling that? I just stated my own personal reason for turning off the broadcast. You don't have to like or agree with it.

Fair enough. I feel bad if you skipped the entire opening ceremonies just because of this, but it certianly is your option to do so. If you missed it, they acknowledged the luger several times and NBC made reference to the tragedy many times and very respectfully.

 

In terms of the physics aspect of steel beams vs plexiglass, you guys are looking at it all wrong. The material has nothing to do with it...its all about angle of deflection. To get a little nerdy, if you have a sharp turn, all of the tangents should be covered by a surface that would be hit at a low angle if someone were to fly off. If a wall of plexiglass (or even diamonds) were running along side, the body would hit it at a low angle and be projected back onto the track. Hitting a beam at 90 degrees is going to cause you to lose all your speed and kill you. Its no different than putting guardrail along a curved road when there are trees behind it. If you car smashes into a tree at a high angle, you are going to be hurt. If you car runs into that guardrail at a low angle, it bends about 2 feet back before spitting you onto the road again with just a scrape along your car. If the guardrail was designed wrong and you somehow managed to hit it at 90 degrees it could still kill you.

 

So anyway, something guardrail like along the finish of that turn could really protect the riders. When building the coarse I doubt they took a safe clear distance into account for putting up beams or other immovable objects though. Still, I am sure the guy who designed that and the guy who built it feel terrible right now.

[TooLiveBrew]

Fair enough. I feel bad if you skipped the entire opening ceremonies just because of this, but it certianly is your option to do so.

 

Yeah, it was definitely a personal quirk and/or overreaction to something that was, in reality, completely unrelated. Just annoyed me. I usually find the Opening Ceremonies a little boring anyway, no matter where they're hosted. The one exception was the OC for the summer games in China -- amazing. If I wanted to watch this games' OC, I'm sure I could find it online.

[JoeHova]

I may be in the minority, but I would like to see professional athletes removed from Olympic competition. I'd much rather see a bunch of college players go play instead of pros (like the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" team). No other sport in the Olympics allows pros, so why should hockey and basketball be any different?

This isn't true. Every sport except boxing allows professionals. The Olympics would be absolute garbage if the pros weren't allowed to compete. Does anybody ever wonder why guys like Jesse Owens only have 4 golds? It's because he had to turn pro and race horses in order to get some money to support himself. Or why Jim Thorpe was stripped of his golds? He had played a few minor league baseball games. Now a guy doesn't have to choose between being in the Olympics and being able to put food on the table, which is how it should be. It would be unconscionable for the Olympics to ban athletes from getting paid while they rake in all the cash. The Olympics used to not even allow people who were coaches or sports instructors compete because that meant they were professional athletes. The only people who could afford to compete more than once were European lords and ladies. Everybody else had to try to support themselves with the sport they devoted their lives to.

[endaround]

Al Micheals is scary looking. He got more work done, got a new piece and its looks the make up crew decided to make him look as much like a corpse as possible.

[TooLiveBrew]

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/2010+Winter+TCA+Tour+Day+2+T74-DgFpDRTl.jpg

[craigharmann]

The dulcet tones of Matty Vasgersian calling ski jumping on NBC right now. Fantastic!!

[pitchleague]

Anyone ever gone out to Utah and paid to ride the bobsled track? I heard its like $40, but you have to sign a waiver because of the dangers involved.

I have done the bobsled track in Lillehammer. It was awesome! I highly recommend it--totally worth the money.

 

You go so fast that even though you see a turn coming you really don't have time to prepare for it. My head was bouncing all over the place. I stood no chance on those multiple turn areas of the course.

[crewcrazy]

It's official. I'll watch anything Matty V does the play-by-play for.

[endaround]

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/2010+Winter+TCA+Tour+Day+2+T74-DgFpDRTl.jpg

The makeup they have him today has taken all color out of his face.

[Patrick425]

I was hoping RUSH would be involved in the opening ceremony. Oh well, maybe they will play in the closing ceremony.

 

I agree about figure skating and too much of it in prime time. It's hard for me to get too much into a sport where the outcome is entirely in the hands of the judges. It all seems very biased. The people that are favored get more favorable scores than the "no names". Kind of like the Braves pitching staff in the 90's.

[JoeHova]

I always forget how terrible NBC's coverage of the games is. Here they are on the first day showing interviews with Wayne Gretzky and some stupid NBC commentator instead of showing ski jumping, which is already over. I accidentally found out the results on ESPN, stupidly assuming that because these games were in North America, NBC wouldn't use much tape delay.

[endaround]

Yeah I can't wait until non NBC coverage really starts up. The stuff on CNBC, MSNBC, USA tends to actually be live. Right now its women's hockey on CNBC.

[craigharmann]

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/2010+Winter+TCA+Tour+Day+2+T74-DgFpDRTl.jpg

He's only 65. I thought he was older than that. What's he going to look like at 80, if he makes it that long? Wow.

[DocLuna7]

A bit off topic from the previous discussions, but how is it that Puerto Rico, Bermuda, or the Cayman Islands can field an Olympic team? I find it a bit odd that the athletes competing are actually citizens of countries that they could be conceivably playing against. Could an athlete from Puerto Rico, since they would be an American citizen, choose to play for either Puerto Rico or the United States? I guess I just didn't realize that this occurred until watching the Ceremony last night.