Slog
News & ArtsFriday, February 12, 2010
Sports The B.C. Olympics Might Be Cursed
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 3:28 PM
Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luge slider competing at the Vancouver Olympics, died today after crashing during a training run and hitting a metal pole. He was 21.According to the Vancouver Sun, Kumaritashvili was traveling at speeds greater than 90 miles per hour at the time of the crash.
The luge track had been called the fastest ever, and the AP notes that concerns were raised even before the fatal crash
Not-gory-but-still-disturbing video of the accident is at the Huffington Post.
7
I fear for the curlers.
Curling is a very dangerous sport, fraught with danger.
God save the Queen and our Curling Team!
Curling is a very dangerous sport, fraught with danger.
God save the Queen and our Curling Team!
9
I stopped at the photos. Pretty horrible and a little invasive. I'm not sure it was really a good idea to publish the ones of his face. #7, not the place for that. The guy died. I heard this track is nicknamed the 50/50 because only 50% of the practice runs have made it all the way thru.
10
@9: I was pretty horrified by the slideshow my paper had -- it basically was a stop-motion version of the crash.
11
@4 - His head collided with that girder at approximately 90mph. Styrofoam would have made zero difference. He was wearing a helmet and that didn't help either.
13
Jesus Christ that was horrible & graphic. Isn't anything private anymore? Can't a mutherfucker die a brutal, violent, horrible death without it going up on YouTube 5 minutes later for all us gawkers to check out and cringe???
...That being said, when ya take up freakin' LUGE as your sport and you regularly travel upwards of 90 mph on a daily basis, you can't be ignorant of the risk to your life you take each and every ride.
...That being said, when ya take up freakin' LUGE as your sport and you regularly travel upwards of 90 mph on a daily basis, you can't be ignorant of the risk to your life you take each and every ride.
14
If the death video bummed you out and you want to balance things out, perhaps watch these clips from the Colbert Report...
Colbert - Skeleton Team tryout:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert…
Colbert - Bobsled team tryout:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert…
Colbert - Skeleton Team tryout:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert…
Colbert - Bobsled team tryout:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert…
15
I fucking fucking hate fucking NBC. At least I used to be able to watch the fucking Olympics on CBC, but they were outbid by some fucking Canadian TV channel with no fucking US presence. And now if I want to watch the fucking Olympics I have to watch it on fucking tape delay. Fuck you NBC, Fuck you Dick Enberg, and fuck fuck fuck.
I kinda feel better now.
I kinda feel better now.
17
I'm trying to remember the last time the opening ceremony was this BORING. Just terrible. I kinda feel cheated.
19
@12: We've always known you were a moron, Will, but this degree of crassness is actually surprising from you. A young man died today, and he may have died because other human beings failed and designed an absurdly dangerous track. It's fucking tragic. Period.
20
@15 slake: I used to watch CTV in Bellingham when I was going to university there. So they do have a presence but you have to be right at the boarder.
And I agree with some of what you said about NBC and their coverage. It wasn't to bad during the ceremonies but, can't the damned station suspend their need for commercial revenue during the opening ceremonies? I get annoyed at having to sit through annoying commercials every 20 minutes and miss parts of the show.
And I agree with some of what you said about NBC and their coverage. It wasn't to bad during the ceremonies but, can't the damned station suspend their need for commercial revenue during the opening ceremonies? I get annoyed at having to sit through annoying commercials every 20 minutes and miss parts of the show.
21
@16 Animated GIF or it didn't happen. Also, the huge party in Whistler, with 6 massive HD screens, and a stage, and live music, etc. that was showing the oppening ceremony lost the live feed from Vancouver for most of the show. half the people watching the show went back to the hotels. Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be the failympics.
22
@17: Really? I'm not even that into the Olympics, and I thought it was great. Opera, spoken-word poetry, Celtic grunge tap-dancing fiddlers... how cool and bizarrely Canadian can you get? Even the malfunction seemed to fit, in a Stephen Leacock kind of way. And k.d. lang was fantastic.
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