Word: luge
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...luge lover reared in a tiny ski resort in Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili seemed destined to slide in the Olympics. Sadly, he never got his chance. Kumaritashvili died on Feb. 12, at age 21, a few hours before the Olympic opening ceremonies. During a training run, Kumaritashvili's sled struck an inside wall on the final turn of the luge track, and he was catapulted into an unpadded steel support column. The accident cast an instant pall over the Olympics and called into question the track's design. In the week leading up to the Games, many luge athletes openly wondered...
...their first week, the Vancouver Olympic Games looked well on their way to a gold medal in winter calamity--tragedy on the luge track, slush on the downhill course at Whistler and drenching rain on Cypress Mountain that eventually washed away the standing-room spectator zone, costing organizers around $1.4 million in refunded ticket sales. The signature snafu may be this: the Canadians couldn't make ice. A men's speed-skating final had to be halted for more than an hour because two ice-resurfacing machines were in various degrees of breakdown--sort of like the Games themselves. Still...
...Vancouver Olympics could not have started on a more somber note. On Feb. 12, a fateful Friday that broke the hearts of those who strongly believe in, or genuinely scoff at, the so-called Olympic ideal - faster, higher, stronger - Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a horrific crash during a training run. The opening ceremonies, held later that evening, were tainted. Fingers were pointed. It was a tragedy that will forever question the intelligence of selling outrageous risk as global sport...
...addition to erecting new protective walls on the final curve, Olympic organizers moved the men's start down the mountain, to the area where the women's luge athletes were scheduled to start their race. The near vertical drop at the beginning of the luge runs helped sliders build the excessive speed; eliminating some 600 feet (183 m) from the 4,600-ft. (1,402 m) track kept most runs below 90 m.p.h. (145 km/h). Loch hit 91.6 m.p.h. (147 km/h) on a Saturday heat, the top speed in the competition. Under the new setup, no luge athlete was injured...
...Monday, are even more irked about the changes. While the men started from the women's position, the women will now start their race where the juniors take off, right before the sixth turn in the 16-turn Whistler track. "I understand it," said American Erin Hamlin, the reigning luge World Champion, while taking in the final moments of the men's competition. "But I've worked so hard training from the women's start and getting into rhythm, for nothing." Competitors in the women's event were only able to practice a handful of runs on the new course...