Luge death at Vancouver olympics, reports reviewed
I decided to become well informed re the Luge death at the winter olympics. Who knows what life-saving benefits might be the result of a person talented and skilled in understanding words and expressing thoughts with words, such as myself, putting some volunteer time into studying the subject, right? But i found myself totally mystified by the reports re the cause of the tragic accident.
As usual, it seemed like the news reports were mindless regurgitations of some other news report, or mindless regurgitations of what an expert has said, with the explanation of the terms used by the expert left out, rendering the regurgitation of what the expert said, incomprehensible. As if the writer was not really interested in understanding what the expert said, and also not interested in imparting to the audience, an understanding of what was said.
It was amazing how long it took to find a map of the course showing the curves in the Luge course that were being talked about. Even after reading many internet news articles re the accident, I was nowhere near finding a map of the course so I could see on the course the curves which caused the problems resulting in the Luge athlete flying off the course, while his sled continued on down the course--f he had kept himself attached to the sled and continued on down the course with the sled, he would still be alive now.
It was like getting sucked into quicksand--finding out the details re the tragedy, became unexpectedly time consuming. The more time I invested in the research, the more it seemed that it would be a waste now to just forget about it, and get on with life, without developing any kind of deep understanding of what happened.
Finally a gif image of the course was located (by me) at http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-spectator-guide/venues/the-whistler-sliding-centre/maps/big-wsc-street-map_148414hO.html# ; I cropped the image and saved it for personal use, so as to enable me to understand what was being talked about in the internet news articles re the tragedy.
"It appears after a routine run, the athlete came late out of curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into curve 16...This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem he eventually lost control of the sled resulting in the tragic accident." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article7026060.ece) (http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/fil-statement-on-mens-luge-competition_274462nE.html).
The internet news was filled with paragraphs such as the one above; most of the readers probably did not understand what was meant by "came late out of curve 15", and "late entrance into curve 16".
The phrases require explanation. From the perspective of the language of the world in general aside from the specialized world of the luge winter olympics, "coming late out of curve 15" would not be a problem, as it would mean that one was going more slowly than usual up to the point of leaving curve 15. Therefore there is something in the expert's comment, that requires explanation as it is based on specialized luge oriented lingo.
The photos of the accident occurring, seemed to show the tragedy victim, entering a curve that would move him in a direction to his left, and flying off the track as he entered this curve. Yet the expert authority whoever he was, said that the accident happened at curve 16, a curve during which the luger is constantly turning to his right. This confusion is left unexplained by the news reports.
A video of the crash is at:http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-021210-luge,0,3014063.story
My close inspection of the photos and the video showed that what happened, is that as the victim flew into the air while turning to his right at the end of the hairpin curve which is curve 16, when he flew into the air, he switched from being feet ahead of head, to head ahead of feet. The photos were taken from the direction that he was traveling. Thus when he flipped from feet first to head first, the photos taken from a spot towards which he was traveling, made it appear as if, he was going feet first into a turn to his left.
"After studying the crash on video, they said, it was determined that the luger was offline coming out of Curve 15 and 'did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into Curve 16'."-- http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-021210-luge,0,3014063.story
The above para is one of the few to translate the mysterious "came late out of curve 15" verbiage.
Apparently, the Luge athletes ride up high on the track during curves, and come down low towards the middle of the track during straightaways; the phrase 'coming out of curve 15 late', meant coming out of the high curve trajectory late, as a result of which one is higher up vertically than one should be coming out of the curve; the authoritative expert opinion translated into common language, best I can tell: the victim was too high vertically coming out of curve 15, which resulted in him being too high vertically coming out of curve 16 also.
At http://fibt.pixabit.de/index.php?id=216&track_id=36&L=0 you can see what it is like to go through the course the victim died on, from the perspective of one sledding through the course at a high speed.
As usual, it seemed like the news reports were mindless regurgitations of some other news report, or mindless regurgitations of what an expert has said, with the explanation of the terms used by the expert left out, rendering the regurgitation of what the expert said, incomprehensible. As if the writer was not really interested in understanding what the expert said, and also not interested in imparting to the audience, an understanding of what was said.
It was amazing how long it took to find a map of the course showing the curves in the Luge course that were being talked about. Even after reading many internet news articles re the accident, I was nowhere near finding a map of the course so I could see on the course the curves which caused the problems resulting in the Luge athlete flying off the course, while his sled continued on down the course--f he had kept himself attached to the sled and continued on down the course with the sled, he would still be alive now.
It was like getting sucked into quicksand--finding out the details re the tragedy, became unexpectedly time consuming. The more time I invested in the research, the more it seemed that it would be a waste now to just forget about it, and get on with life, without developing any kind of deep understanding of what happened.
Finally a gif image of the course was located (by me) at http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-spectator-guide/venues/the-whistler-sliding-centre/maps/big-wsc-street-map_148414hO.html# ; I cropped the image and saved it for personal use, so as to enable me to understand what was being talked about in the internet news articles re the tragedy.
"It appears after a routine run, the athlete came late out of curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into curve 16...This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem he eventually lost control of the sled resulting in the tragic accident." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article7026060.ece) (http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/fil-statement-on-mens-luge-competition_274462nE.html).
The internet news was filled with paragraphs such as the one above; most of the readers probably did not understand what was meant by "came late out of curve 15", and "late entrance into curve 16".
The phrases require explanation. From the perspective of the language of the world in general aside from the specialized world of the luge winter olympics, "coming late out of curve 15" would not be a problem, as it would mean that one was going more slowly than usual up to the point of leaving curve 15. Therefore there is something in the expert's comment, that requires explanation as it is based on specialized luge oriented lingo.
The photos of the accident occurring, seemed to show the tragedy victim, entering a curve that would move him in a direction to his left, and flying off the track as he entered this curve. Yet the expert authority whoever he was, said that the accident happened at curve 16, a curve during which the luger is constantly turning to his right. This confusion is left unexplained by the news reports.
A video of the crash is at:http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-021210-luge,0,3014063.story
My close inspection of the photos and the video showed that what happened, is that as the victim flew into the air while turning to his right at the end of the hairpin curve which is curve 16, when he flew into the air, he switched from being feet ahead of head, to head ahead of feet. The photos were taken from the direction that he was traveling. Thus when he flipped from feet first to head first, the photos taken from a spot towards which he was traveling, made it appear as if, he was going feet first into a turn to his left.
"After studying the crash on video, they said, it was determined that the luger was offline coming out of Curve 15 and 'did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into Curve 16'."-- http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-021210-luge,0,3014063.story
The above para is one of the few to translate the mysterious "came late out of curve 15" verbiage.
Apparently, the Luge athletes ride up high on the track during curves, and come down low towards the middle of the track during straightaways; the phrase 'coming out of curve 15 late', meant coming out of the high curve trajectory late, as a result of which one is higher up vertically than one should be coming out of the curve; the authoritative expert opinion translated into common language, best I can tell: the victim was too high vertically coming out of curve 15, which resulted in him being too high vertically coming out of curve 16 also.
At http://fibt.pixabit.de/index.php?id=216&track_id=36&L=0 you can see what it is like to go through the course the victim died on, from the perspective of one sledding through the course at a high speed.
Labels: accident, death, luge, vancouver, winter olympics
posted by David Virgil at 6:25 AM
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