There have been a series of crashes during bobsleigh training runs at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The worst incident saw one of the Australian two-man team being taken to hospital for observation. 

The Dutch two-man team also crashed. The two brothers Edwin and Arnold van Calker escaped unharmed after their bobsleigh ended up on its side in one of the lower bends of the track at Whistler. In total eight teams fell foul of the course whilst doing their practise runs.
 
Safety concerns were raised about the track just hours before the Olympics opened last week when  21-year-old Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, crashed during a training run and died in hospital. He flew off the track at curve no. 16 at a speed of 140 kph and hit a metal pillar.
 
Measures
To reduce the risk of further incidents, the protective wall near curve 16 was raised and the ice profile of the luge track altered. The starting point of the men's singles was moved to the lower starting station, which is also used by the women and the men's doubles.
 
The luge track was built in 2007 at Whistler, 125 kms north of Vancouver, on a steep hillside. Because of its siting, the speeds that lugers can attain on this track are in excess of 150 kph.
 
Joseph Fendt, the president of the World Luge Federation, told the Daily Telegraph in London: "It is true that we did not expect those speeds on the track but after a while we found out the track is safe for athletes." The competing athletes agree that the Whistler track is safe. They say there have been 5000 runs without major incident.
 
The track is also used by Olympic skeleton riders, who told the Toronto Star, "This track is both really tough and high speed. It's really easy to make mistakes so you must be really careful in every place."
The two-time German Olympic bobsleigh champion, Christoph Langen, working as a TV analyst for ZDF, said he thought the latest crashes could be put down to steering mistakes. 
 

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