Almost Canadian

For someone that appears to find the UK abhorrent, you appear to spend a huge amount of time trawling through its media.

Oakvillian

VANOC and the IOC were left in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position after the death in a training accident.

Half the world (including, as far as I can tell, nobody with any direct connection to the sport or to the event) seems to be in a "woe is me, the whole thing must be cancelled, we must find somebody to blame, tragedy tragedy" sort of mode.

The other half, including several current and former sliders who are prepared to say so in public, are insistent that this was a tragic accident that, while absolutely tragic, is an inherent risk in a dangerous sport. From the competitors, there have been more complaints about the start being brought down than about anything else connected with the sliding events.

On the one hand, there is a desire - pursued by the media, certainly - to push the boundaries of sports such as luge, with ever faster tracks, higher top speeds, more excitement, more danger, greater risk of death or serious injury. Then when a death or serious injury occurs, the media change hands and berate the organisers for making it too dangerous, too fast, too exciting. Double standards and hypocrisy in the media? Shurely shome mishtake.

Lord Vader

so were the Germans.

dbd33

Perhaps editorials in the Canadian Luging Digest promote faster tracks but it's a bit strong to argue that the remainder of the media notices luging except when there's a death. Luging and pedestrianism have similar status in the MSM.

Oakvillian

Sure, luge is buried in the inside back pages of a small handful of papers except when something like this happens. But where it is reported it is typically in praise of higher speeds and more spectacular tracks. Outside the Winter Olympics you have to work hard to find coverage, but I have a couple of friends who were competitive sliders in luge and skeleton and have vaguely followed the world cups for a few years.

I think you only reinforce my point: a frenzied media speculating on the causes and effects of a tragic death do not add anything to the debate going on inside the sliding sports' governing bodies and the IOC, they just muddy the waters with sensationalism and uninformed claptrap.

JonboyE

You know what the British media is like. It will all change as soon as Britons win a few medals.





Oh.

JonboyE

Unfair. The British reaction is all over the news here.

dbd33

If that "sensationalism and uninformed claptrap" is the media's only reporting of luge, and that's already more than enough for me, then it's hardly fair to suggest media culpability in a desire for more danger and greater risk. The media is interested only because there's been a death, were there none then the papers would contain reports on death by car accident or domestic violence.

If the luging authorities care to see their game in the papers then, yes, they need death or breasts, but so far as the media is concerned they can just as well chug along in obscurity. If lugists crave fame to the extent of sacrifice then good luck to them but it's not right to say that the papers made them do it.

Oakvillian

Your selective quoting does you disservice. You missed the bit where I said:

Jingle

Completely agree - in general the public and media love the excitement of people taking risks and going ever faster in order to break records. But when it all goes wrong .....

We had 20 years direct involvement with F1 racing when living in UK and we were at Imola in 1994 when Senna were killed. During testing Roland Ratzenburger was killed and Barichello was injured in what looked like a horrific crash during testing.

There were also two other crashes during the race meeting as well as Senna's, that cast a question mark over the safety of the course. At one point debris flew onto the crowd, over the debris fence and injured a number of spectators.

There has been much speculation about Senna's death - driver error, bumps on the track, snapped steering column. The court case that followed was inconclusive and the only person who really knows what happened that day died in the accident. The truth may never be known and while it was a tragedy, the sport has become significantly safer because of his death.

One can only hope the same applies here - somehow it always takes a tragedy for things to change.

J

dbd33

In luge?

"sensationalism and uninformed claptrap" is the media's primary reporting of luge and that relates specifically to deaths. If there's a world luging record and if it were to be broken next July I doubt that'd even make the sports columns, nevermind the news proper. If the miniscule coverage of luging is really an influence on the behavior of luge administrators then they're as star struck as X-Factor contestants.

Oakvillian

Now you're just being silly. It's unlikely that a world record - if such a thing existed - for a winter sport would be broken in July. The Southern Hemisphere is not overburdened with sliding facilities. Luge has an annual world cup, run along similar lines to the skiing world cups, where points gained in races throughout the season contribute to the overall victory, and world championships every season except in Olympic years, where there is one race (a race consisting of an aggregate time over several runs down a course) to decide the champion.

That example of small-circulation niche journalism, the BBC, for example, provides online coverage of luge and other sliding events every season.

Almost Canadian

It is not unfair at all. If I despised the UK as much as he appears to, I wouldn't care what their media said.

dbd33

If we don't follow the media from the UK how do we know what's going on in the world?

triumphguy

Someone brought up the TT before.

Should sporting events cease when death occurs.

Not in the Isle of Man apparently:

wiki