Originally Posted by hershie

Why This Track Means Fear

This story originally appeared in The Globe and Mail on Saturday, February 6, 2010.

What we have here is a veritable Citius Altius Fortius checkmate.

Canada will make its stand against the German medal machine in bobsleigh, luge and skeleton on a track that's hit the outer limits of sliding sports.

Early in the planning for the 2014 Sochi Games, the Russian hosts were told flatly by the sport's governing bodies: those speeds at the Whistler Sliding Centre? Don't even dream of trying to match them.

Think about that: how many sports have essentially stood up and said: Enough!

The sport has screamed Uncle, Onkel and Dyadya.

"In 30 years, who knows?" said Canadian luger Jeff Christie, a Vancouver native who represents the athletes. "But I know that the FIL [the governing body] has told tracks that in the future, 135ish [kilometres an hour] is about it."

But that won't be 'it' in Whistler.

The two fastest speeds in World Cup luge and bobsleigh history were recorded here last season. German luger Felix Loch hit 153.937 km/h. Janis Minins of Latvia became the first four-man bobsleigh driver to reach 153 km/h - more than five km/h better than the fastest time posted on the World Cup this year, on the natural ice surface at St. Moritz, a track with fewer perils than Whistler's.

Whistler's reputation was established in November, 2008 when Loch damaged shoulder tendons in a crash and was one of three lugers hospitalized, and Canadian bob driver Pierre Lueders crashed in Corner 7, which was instantly named Lueders' Loop.

Holcomb has since claimed that the course was designed backward, with tighter turns near the bottom where sleds max-out the speed. And American luger Tony Benshoof told NBC: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."

Turn 13 banks sharply to the left and sends the sleds into a horseshoe-shaped curve that slings them to the finish line. Two-time overall World Cup bobsleigh champion Steve Holcomb nicknamed it "50/50" after half the sleds crashed during the World Cup training run. Some track modifications since then will give the drivers a little more leeway going into it during the Olympics.

"There is a human limit," says Canadian luge coach and former German doubles medalist Wolfgang Staudinger. "I hope we don't increase the speed of our tracks. Whistler is on the limit."

"You never say never," says Terry Gudzowsky, the former Canadian bobsledder who heads the FIBT's track commission and who consulted on Whistler and Sochi track designs. "Speed isn't the issue. At St. Moritz ... there's not a lot of G-forces there."

The Whistler Sliding Centre is designed to a maximum G-force of 5.02, and sleds will typically pull 2.5 or 3.0 Gs. By comparison, a Formula 1 car might hit three to four Gs when braking, and a top fuel dragster going from 0 to 160 km/h in 0.8 seconds creates a G-force of 5.0.

"The difference in Whistler is you're going 150 through [turns] 12, 13, 14," said Gudzowsky, who is an on-track official. "There's a chicane with a lot of pressure and in 15 ... that's where speed becomes an issue. In future the intent will be to stay away from combining high speed and high G-forces. Sochi will be like Whistler in that both are relatively narrow and steep but ... there will be three uphill sections to control the speed. It will be quick. It will be technical. But we will be doing 150 here. We'll be in the 130s in Sochi."

Robert Storey, the Ottawa-based president of the FIBT, was part of a 1966 crash in Lake Placid where teammate Sergio Zardini died.

"All new tracks are set out as huge bogeymen and, generally, there's a reaction to new tracks from the most reactionary of people - usually coaches," Storey said. "A track changes over time ...everybody adapts."

Christie noticed a difference in the track in December. World Cup overall skeleton champion Mellisa Hollingsworth of Eckville, Alta., freely admits the track unnerves her, saying it "seems to change every time we come to train. There's a fine line to make it slideable for all three sports."

"Ice-wise, it's the best it's been," said Christie, who was arrived in Whistler on Thursday. "It's important that people remember that a track is a living, breathing thing. What I've learned about this track is you need to back off on the driving a bit. You need to react to what's happening instead of what you think will happen."