Vancouver Olympics Anyone?

Jim Brennan

Jim Brennan

VHS Member Old Skool
Today's the big day. I know the weather hasn't been ideal, but I am excited to see the opening ceremony.

No thread on this yet?
 
Shawn O'Sullivan, who lives in town here, carried the torch in Vancouver the other day.
(Belleville is just full of celebrities I'm starting to wonder.) :)
 
I thought that the opening ceremony was a bit uneven, but good overall. I think that they did a great job with the video on the floor of the arena. The parts with the ice breaking up and the whales were very cool.
 
Yes! The video on the floor of the arena was pretty incredible. There were some pretty stunning visuals. The ice, the mountains, the wheat fields, and the suspended snowboarders surfing down the "mountain." Unfortunately, for Canada, I don't think anyone could watch the show without comparing it to the opening ceremony at Beijing.
 
As a Canadian I felt ashamed at the result of the inquiry probing the death of Georgian luger athlete. Olympic officials stated that Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate.
So, the moral of the story is; Therefore he deserved to die???
Other athletes mentioned that they do not remember any other incident where somebody flying over the wall...
Think about it, this is a sport you reach the speed of somewhere around 150km/hour on a device that has no protection.
It is obvious that engineers calculated the risk of flying over the wall is 0, since they didnt put a safety net.
How do you explain raising the wall for the rest of the competitions 'as a preventative measure'.
(It sounds like medical scientist who fail to find a link between mercury in vaccines and autism, yet remove the mercury completely nevertheless, as a preventative measure)
For me Vancouver Olympics is dead. I hope the irresponsibility in not accepting the fault at this incident will haunt Canada, and some sort of justice will be delivered sometime soon...
 
It is sad. I have to believe that an average speed difference of between 5 and 10 MPH between this track and any other in the world is huge. They pushed the envelope too far. It doesn't matter if the guy made a mistake. If people are typically in the mid 90's at the bottom of the track (which is where he lost control) than ANYONE could have had that happen to them. It wasn't a question of if, but when.
 
It is sad. I have to believe that an average speed difference of between 5 and 10 MPH between this track and any other in the world is huge. They pushed the envelope too far.
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Honestly, I dont know much about luge, or winter olympics, or the impact of the speed difference etc.
All I know is that officials already cleared themselves off from any responsibility (quote from wiki): ...accident was caused by a steering error, and not a track error.
And that is outrageous; Errors should cause you to lose a race, or time, or medal etc; it shouldnt strip the life out of you. Yes there are risks involved in any sport, but the luger didnt die inside the track by an accident happened due to his error (inherent risks), he literally flew off the track(unanticipated risk) and hit the steel beams only few inches away from the race track.

On top of that, here is another insult:
“One hundred percent, that was not a track issue. It was a driving error,” said German Wolfgang Staudinger, Canada’s luge coach. “We had issues like this before and that happens when you have so-called exotic sliders. The guys must know when they enter a track like this that it’s serious business, it’s not a joke.”
And then here is another reflection of the incident:
Canadian Regan Lauscher complained that the lowered start means her nation's home-track advantage is "basically gone."

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics...old-father-he-was-terrified-of?urn=oly,219592

You see how sensitive & sad they are over loosing a human being?!...(Btw according to news Kumaritashvili was ranked 44th in the World Cup this season. One of his training runs in Whistler ranked 12th-fastest, so he wasn't an inexperienced luger either)

It is a moral issue with grave consequences; a sportsman's death due to his error should not be received as a 'normal outcome'
(Especially when the accident caused by this error is not anticipated as an inherent risk)
 
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To be fair, the fact that one human being died during a training run is very small in comparison to the thousands of children living in poverty in this city. Thousands more call the streets home, many of which have debilitating mental illness which prevents them from ever getting a job or paying for the medicine they need. Over 9 billion dollars was spent on these Olympic games...That is enough money to end child poverty and feed those who need it for the rest of their lives. Instead, we spent it all on games. During the open ceremonies, over 2,000 people came together to bring up the issues of Homelessness in the city, child poverty and Native land rights, just to name a few. Along the way, there were a disgusting number of people who were actually booing the protestors. It left me with an emotion I have never before experienced in my life, an undescribeable sadness.

I love this country, but something needs to change.

Sources:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/11/21/bc-child-poverty-first-call-poverty.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary...ning-Ceremony-What-about-Vancouver-s-homeless

Amateur Documentary about the Olympics: http://www.thefiveringcircus.com/5ring.swf
 
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That's pretty terrible.

Guess it's a bad time to mention Canada winning our first gold ever on Canadian soil...
 
To be fair, the fact that one human being died during a training run is very small in comparison to the thousands of children living in poverty in this city.
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The thousands of children living in poverty in this city are very small in comparison to the millions of dollars to be made from the Olympic deals. Is it not fair to some? Where do you draw the line if your moral ground is comparison?
Otherwise what you are saying is a shared belief among many of us, I just think it belongs to another conversation. Right or wrong people of this city decided to celebrate a very important sport event; it means a lot to some folks and to competitors, so it may as well be enjoyed.

Kumaritashvili's death & what followed on the other hand signifies a much bigger death happening everywhere: Loss of empathy. I'll just shut up now...
 
VGurcu said:
Kumaritashvili's death & what followed on the other hand signifies a much bigger death happening everywhere: Loss of empathy. I'll just shut up now...
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Agreed.

When I saw the video of the accident I broke down. It is very very sad that it happened the way it did, and it`s even worse they blame him for not being able to control his sled.

I am also going to remove my opening statement from my post as it comes off a lot colder than I would like.
 
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