02-13-2010, 02:45 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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The Death Card
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2010 Winter Olympics Thread
Didn't see one here, so I started it. The big event kicked off today, with a tragic morning as Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a trial run at a VERY fast Whistler luge track.
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High-speed crash on sliding course kills young Georgian athlete
February 13, 2010
DAVE PERKINS
WHISTLER, B.C.–The gruesome potential of high-speed sports became tragic reality when a 21-year-old Georgian luger died in a training crash Friday morning, instantly shattering the mostly joyous lead-up to the Vancouver Winter Games
Nodar Kumaritashvili, competing in his first Olympics, lost control of his sled on the finishing turn in his final pre-Olympic practice run at the Whistler Sliding Centre. He spun out of the final turn on to the braking straightaway, which rises gradually to slow racers, but he scarcely slowed and flew off his sled and over the railing, slamming back-first into the seventh of 20 steel poles that hold up a protective sun roof.
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Gretzky lights the cauldron after a huge technical mishap strands the final torchbearers for over two minutes.
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Four Canadian icons officially open Games
LeMay Doan, Nash, Greene Raine, Gretzky light the flame
By Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver SunFebruary 13, 2010 1:14 AM
In the end, it required four indisputable Canadian sports icons, not simply a single hand, to light the Olympic flame and officially open the XXI Winter Olympiad in Vancouver.
Famed wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen carried the torch into BC Place, passed the flame to gold-medal winning speed skater Catriona LeMay Doan, who lit NBA star Steve Nash's torch, who lit gold medal skier Nancy Greene Raine's, who fired hockey great Wayne Gretzky's.
Doan, Nash, Green and Gretzky-- each carrying a torch-- then walked to the base of a cauldron seemingly composed of giant shards of ice that emerged from the stadium's playing field.
Together, the four were to use their torches to ignite the base, but only three did as one of the giant shards failed to emerge from the turf.
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Protesters protest, as per usual in Vancouver
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Protesters march, chanting 'shame, Canada, shame'
By Allan Dowd, ReutersFebruary 13, 2010 2:12 AM
Anti-Olympic demonstrators marched yesterday through the streets of Vancouver to the Games opening ceremony chanting slogans such as "shame, Canada, shame" but were blocked from entering the event.
Although two people were taken into custody as police and protesters clashed outside the stadium, much of the march by several hundred people supporting anti-globalization and anti-poverty groups took place in a party-like atmosphere.
The downtown was also packed with tourists, many of whom looked confused as they passed the demonstrations. Others were seen having their photographs taken in front of the Olympic countdown clock as nearby speakers denounced the Games.
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Any interest in the winter Olympics? I live in the 'burbs of Vancouver, so I have a pretty unique perspective on all the shenanigans if anyone wants more information.
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Feh.
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