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Public sliding applications not impacted by safety audit

A safety audit of the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre has no relation to applications currently before the B.C. Safety Authority to offer skeleton and bobsleigh runs to the public at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

A safety audit of the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre has no relation to applications currently before the B.C. Safety Authority to offer skeleton and bobsleigh runs to the public at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Keith Bennett, the president and CEO of Whistler Sport Legacies, confirmed that the safety audit - as recommended by the B.C. Coroner's Service following the death of a luge athlete before the Olympics - will not hamper their ability to draw visitors and locals in through the Skeleton Experience and Bobsleigh Experience tours.

"(The B.C. Safety Authority application) is a completely independent process, and focuses on things that are very different than what the audit will be focused on," said Bennett. "It's more questions like who's doing (the tours), what's the safety program, how are the sleds built. When you're bringing people in, how do you describe it to them."

The proposed Skeleton Experience would allow people to slide down the last six of the 16 corners of the Whistler Sliding Centre course. The Bobsleigh Experience will include the bottom 10 corners.

Because of the shorter distance and no running starts, speeds aren't nearly as high as they are for high performance athletes.

"Anything that comes out of the audit will probably benefit the public ride program, but in that program the speeds are so much lower and the starts at such a lower level that the things (the B.C. Coroner's report) is concerned about are not a factor," he said.

Whistler Sport Legacies hopes to get approval to run guests through the Skeleton Experience by late February or early March. The price has been set at $130 for two runs. Bobsleigh likely won't be approved until the following season and will be priced at $140 for one run - the cheapest tour of its kind in the world.

As for the audit, Whistler Sports Legacy has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest on Dec. 1, closing on Dec. 31. Soon after they hope to issue a more formal Request for Proposal to complete a safety audit of the track.

Bennett says the goal is to have a completed audit by August, so any recommended changes can be incorporated into the track before the start of next season.

"I don't think there will be any drastic changes, I don't think we can do that, but there might be some small changes," he said. "It's hard to speculate what might come out of it."

The Whistler Sliding did make some changes over the summer, slightly modifying the exit of Corner 11 and entrance into Corner 12.

Bennett says that's normal for any new track.

"The changes made to the track were subtle ones, more operational in nature and doing a little work on the concrete to make it easier to be on 2.5 centimetres or so of ice.

"We'll probably do a number of other small things, tweaking here and tweaking there, which is pretty typical for these tracks. I've talked to people in the business and every track goes through a period of time where athletes learn the track and people who own or operate the tracks learn all the nuances of operating it."

As well, Bennett says it's common for tracks to go through a period where it can be scary for athletes and crashes are common, "to the point where everybody gets it," he said. "The Canadians are already there. They enjoy the track, they love the speed and the quality of the ice, and the challenge that is there."

Among other things, the B.C. Coroner's report also recommended that athletes get more training runs from lower starts to better familiarize themselves with all new tracks.

Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old luger from Georgia who was killed in a training run on Feb. 12, had been on the Whistler track several times, although he skipped the international training week after it opened, as well as the World Cup test event.

However, the Georgian government and Kumaritashvili's family has bristled at any suggestions that he was inexperienced, given the fact he qualified for the Olympics. Their position was that the track is dangerous, and believe that any mistakes should not result in death.

The International Luge Federation also believes that Kumaritashvili's sled may have played a role in the accident. When Kumaritashvili was late coming out of Corner 16 he banked off the wall on the opposite side and was bounced off the course into a metal pillar. FIL says his sled should have crumpled to absorb the impact, but instead it flexed slightly and added to the catapult effect.

Bennett says there aren't many organizations that are qualified to audit the safety of a sliding track, and the world's leading experts were involved in the Whistler Sliding Centre's construction from the start. However, he says they wanted an independent review and have already approached universities and companies with related engineering experience.

The track was originally rated for 135.3 km/h maximum speed for luge athletes, but the record currently stands at 154 km/h - almost 20 km/h faster than the designers predicted. The speed isn't considered dangerous, however, unless there is a possibility of athletes leaving the track.

The track audit will look at the track design, track speeds, the placement and configuration of track barriers and other protective measure, the possibility of violent crashes inside the track, and the potential for athletes to leave the track and cause injuries to athletes, track workers and spectators.