>>>Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a crash while training for the Olympics in Vancouver, the Georgian Embassy said.

What a sad way to end a dream for Nodar and the family

STAN

YES this is sad...we need to pray for his family

dgrimm60

:(

I hope that our inclement ski conditions will not lead to more tragedies...

Yeah, I just heard about that today, how sad.

pk

I just saw the video of this accident. I recommend not watching it, nor letting kids see it. Quite horrifying. Very, very sad. Also several other lugers have been hurt training on this very fast track. One young man was even knocked unconscious. Is it worth it?

The video I saw was so fast and at a distance that you really couldn't see much. Does anyone have a link to a better one? And one with slow motion?

One report said they often can reach 135 km per hour, but this one is much faster.

Incrediable

drat

They can hit 98 MPH on the final curve.

Men's Olympic lugers will start lower on track


By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer Tom Withers, Ap Sports Writer – 30 mins ago

WHISTLER, British Columbia – International luge officials are moving the start of the men's Olympic luge competition farther down the track. It was a decision made with the "emotional component" of athletes in mind following the death of a Georgian competitor.

Men's training on Saturday morning, as well as all four runs of the men's competition that begins later, will take place from the women's start ramp.

The move means speeds will be a bit lower at the Whistler Sliding Track. It likely also means the course will be a bit easier to navigate.

American luger Tony Benshoof navigated the 16 turns without incident

I saw the video this morning. How horrifying... :(

MSNBC.com


Networks’ use of luge video draws criticism

Callers especially upset by airing of crash during opening ceremony

By David Bauder
The Associated Press
updated 2:01 p.m. PT, Sat., Feb. 13, 2010

NEW YORK - NBC and other networks were criticized Saturday for broadcasting the disturbing video of a Georgian luger who died after flying off the track and slamming into a steel beam during an Olympic training run.

NBC said callers complained and Twitter was aflame with disgust. Much of the criticism centered on the network showing the footage at the beginning of its coverage of Friday's opening ceremony for the Vancouver Games, even though video of Nodar Kumaritashvili's death aired on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft.)

News organizations frequently weigh the imperative of depicting the reality of the world they cover with concerns about whether images would be too disturbing for the public. In this case, the networks warned viewers and used the video. NBC, in a departure from its usual policy of holding onto video because it is the U.S. Olympics rightsholder, let other networks use it.

"We owe folks a warning here," NBC News anchor Brian Williams said at the beginning of his network's coverage of the opening ceremony Friday. "These pictures are very tough for some people to watch."

Similar warnings were offered by Diane Sawyer and Maggie Rodriguez on the ABC and CBS newscasts. On the "CBS Evening News," the video was shown three times —the last in slow motion. Although NBC muffled the sound of the accident, elsewhere the thudding clank of Kumaritashvili hitting the steel beam was audible.

The warnings weren't enough for Matthew T. Sussman, sports editor of Blogcritics Magazine, who wrote, "so it's anyone's fault for feeling nauseous or traumatized by what they saw. And it really is a terrible clip."

Kim Hartman, a freelance writer from Charleston, W.Va., wrote on a CNN posting that NBC should be ashamed for airing it at the opening of the Olympics.

"I hope that young man's family and friends and countrymen and women and children survive the trauma that you chose to expose them to," Hartman wrote. "You have ruined my games by embedding that image into my mind as the first thing I will recall and perhaps the only thing I will recall that occurred in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympic Games."

The story "could have been told perfectly accurately and well without NBC's 'Faces of Death' moment," blogger Dana Pico wrote.

An NBC executive involved in the decision was not immediately available for comment.

The decisions to air the video, which also appeared on NBCOlympics.com, NBC's Olympics Web site, and elsewhere online, were interesting in the context of caution elsewhere. Many TV networks, for instance, did not show images of people jumping from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Journalists have been criticized by some for not conveying the realities of America's two wars. It became an issue last fall, for example, when The Associated Press distributed a still picture of a mortally wounded U.S. Marine in an Afghanistan battlefield and was criticized for it by the U.S. defense secretary.

Bob Steele, an expert on media ethics at DePauw University, said Saturday he hoped the networks gave careful thought to their decisions.

"Clearly it was a failure if they just said, 'Wow, look at that, let's put it up.' Or 'the other networks are using it, let's put it up,'" Steele said.

He was also concerned that distance was a factor: a TV network might be more willing to air such a video with the victim from the republic of Georgia, and less so if an American had been killed.

Yes. I saw the replay on the coverage tonight. And they slowed it down so you could get a better view. Terrible crash.

STAN

THANK you for the lay out of the course

dgrimm60

AMELIA

WELL so the men will be starting at the women's
starting point----- I wonder how if this will effect
the time

dgrimm60