On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 1:56 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I first heard the story on NPR news in my car yesterday. There was a >> mention at the end of the story of criticism that the luge course >> concentrated on speed at the cost of safety. So let's say they decided >> to plan it the other way - the safest luge course. It would be slower >> than other courses, which is what makes it safer. And now you have the >> best luge competitors coming together and competing on a slow course. >> None of them are going to have record times. Given the choice, the >> athletes would opt for the faster course. > > They interviewed a slider this afternoon who had a practice run on the new, > slower track. He noted with a grimace that they were using the "women's run" > and said it was slower, and kind of boring. But he also said it was safer > and, all things considered, he preferred the safer run to the more exciting > one. > > Of course, if they had listened to the feedback earlier, they could have put > together a track that was fast enough not to be boring, without being so > fast as to be irresponsibly dangerous. There are more choices than just > either the fastest course in Olympic history, or the slowest one.
I don't think it's that easy to engineer, in the sense of finding a track that is fast enough and still safe. It could be a matter of millimeters or single degrees in the banking turns. We know that nobody designs a track to be lethal (at least until the next Bond movie). The choice isn't between the fastest and the slowest course as any track in use in competition today is going to be faster than a track from 30 years ago. Tom -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
