XXI Winter Olympics - Men's Doubles Luge

More madness. I guess I don't remember or I did not watch this last time (I used to prefer Summer Games) but I had no idea that there was a luge with two men on it. This is much more bizarre than the regular luge! I've no idea how this is aerodynamic! This looks more klutzy than the regular luge. On the other hand, when you watch them racing, you can't really see the bottom guy - he's buried under the top man.

Austria took the gold on this. There was one accident - sort of - with the other two guys from Austria. They did not come off the sled but they were WAY too high on Turn 16 and crashed into the side of track coming out of it. And I don't know how the bottom guy felt, but his face shield popped off and the bigger guy was bouncing around on top of him! He was quite shaky when he got up off the sled.

It was interesting to watch the mens' doubles. Both are on the sled and while it looks like the bottom rider is behind the front man, once they are actively going, it looks like one man is on top of the other. In fact, it doesn't even look - from the front shots (feet first) as though there is even a second rider.

When they are settling into the top of track on the sled, checking the straps and the foot placement, there is a very weird off-key whistle that tells the men that they are ready to begin the run. It is a perfectly awful sound. I'm not sure why they use such a terrible noise.

Every race has its starting tone - gun shot for speed-skating, the off-key whistle for luge... I'm not sure what the ice skaters' cue is... but this one is not only audible, it's quite unpleasant. Well, maybe I can find an explanation. I noticed Dick Button's humongous clunkers, and someone else did, so maybe someone noticed this, too...

Unfortunately, when one types "luge" into the Google engine, all that comes up is the accident that occurred just prior to the Opening Ceremonies. Guess I will try a couple of more times to see if I can't find it.

No, I can't find it.

Well, it was certainly interesting, no matter what!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really fair that she’s up for a MasterChef win aft
Read more

A.W.A.D. - 14-Letter Words, 14-Letter Definitions

Back in 1994, when I founded Wordsmith.org on a Pi Day (March 14), I had no idea that one day we'd be celebrating its quadridecennial. Here's what the last 14 years look in numbers: So far we have sent out 3,782 unique words and 297 AWADmail compilations to 640,000 present subscribers in 200 countries, that is more than 1.6 billion pieces of email. Well, this week we're seeing all things 14. We'll feature words that are 14 letters long, and define each of them in 14 letters. acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun Color blindness. [From Greek akritos (undistinguishing) + chroma (color).] tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. To ring; to tinkle. [From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to jingle).] tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun Change of colour. [From Latin tinctus (a dyeing) + mutation (changing).] Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective Of gigantic size. [After Brobdingnag, the fictional region where everything was enormous
Read more

An Interesting Wife Swap...

Image
I'm catching up on our Wife Swap recordings. I'm watching the epiode Burroughs/Padovan-Hickman one that aired on 17 April 2009. The one I watched just before was really quite satisfying - the families both learned a lot and seemed to really take it to heart. This one, however, is back to the familiar mold of putting families that are so totally diametrically opposite families together that they almost can't get along. This is interesting, though, because the Padovan-Hickmans have electricity but don't use it, don't flush often, go for a week without showering and then the whole family uses the same bathwater... I can see where that would be hard, especially for me in that I have very oily skin and hair and would look rather wretched after the next day. But the family themselves are very likable and fun, the father looks more like a kindly grandfather, but really is quite intelligent and pleasant. I would have trouble with the clean thing and I'd miss my iPod
Read more