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The death of a Georgian luge athlete on the day of the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics occurred amid concerns about the speed of the record-setting track at the Whistler Sliding Center, according to a Georgian official. “There were some questions asked by other athletes even before this tragic accident,” said Nikolas Rurua, Georgia’s deputy minister for culture and sports, adding that there had been several crashes in the same area. The luge is often called the “fastest sport on ice.” Sliders use their legs and shoulders to steer small fiberglass sleds down an icy track, at times approaching or surpassing speeds of 90 mph, according to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Web site. Sports Illustrated’s David Epstein, who covered the Olympics for the magazine, claims that the Whistler course is the fastest in the world “and not by a little.” He notes that while most luge courses “flatten out” around the 11th turn, the Whistler track “just keeps on dropping, so there’s really kind of no break from gathering speed toward the end.” Epstein reports that some athletes had been complaining about the speed of the course and speculating that this Winter Games could be the first time the sport sees a competitor hit 100 mph. “That’s 15 to 20 mph faster than any course in the rest of the world.”

Analysis:

The attraction of “the fastest track” is palpable in”this Winter Games could be the first time the sport sees a competitor hit 100 mph.”  Faster, higher, bigger.  Whether we are talking about luge tracks, sky-scrapers, or passenger jets, it seems to be in the human psyche to extend a threshold even further—regardless of how far it is from our natural speed, height and size.  The Titanic was the largest thing built by man in 1912. Accordingly, it was presumed it could not sink.  Or take the Hindenburg—the largest Zepplin in the 1930s.  Or the A380 today.  How big can an airplane get before it falls from its own weight? In the wake of the A380, Boeing produced a stretched 747 that is longer than the A380.  Everyone must be the biggest, highest or longest. This is the task-master of the medocre, not the truly talented, for the latter relish the talent itself.

The faster, higher or bigger we go, the more we stretch ourselves beyond what our bodies were designed to withstand.  Yet we ignore this as we turn our attention to the next faster, higher or bigger.  Nature pales in comparison with man’s designs, and there is no limit to how fast, high and big we can get.  That a track might be too fast seems to go against everything we believe in.  “Close it down?  We can’t do that.  We might even get a record on it.”

There is an old saying: what goes up must come down.  Empires rise and fall.  The higher a person gets, the harder the fall.  These lines could be translated as: the farther we go from natural human environs, the harder the fall.  In chasing after incremental records, we miss the cumulative distance, and thus the cumulative danger.  We dismiss signs as mere aberations.  It is dangerous for a blind person to go even faster or scale greater heights. It is dangerous to build something crashable even bigger, particularly if we think it is too big to sink.   ”I assure you, good sir, it is made of iron. The Titanic will sink. It is a mathematical certainty.”

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/02/12/olympic.luge.crash/index.html