Curve 9 on luge track proves dangerous
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – By the time the Pyeongchang Olympics opened, curve nine had a reputation that preceded it.
Among the sliders who will tackle that curve, and the rest of the track at the Alpensia Sliding Centre, that section of the track has been most challenging.
On Tuesday, American luger Emily Sweeney spun out of control on that curve and tumbled down the track. She walked off, and the on-site doctor said she had no broken bones, but she left in an ambulance.
On Sunday, German luger Felix Loch failed to win a third consecutive gold medal after skidding in his final run.
“The track was in good shape,” Loch said. “I did a mistake out of corner nine, and that is one part of the track you are not allowed to do a mistake and that was the reason.”
For sports where tracks can be used for decades, new ones are relatively rare. Only 17 are currently in use, with the Pyeongchang track opening most recently.
Though bobsled, skeleton and luge had test events before the Games, athletes in those sports learn how to best navigate tracks over the course of years. So the track here is still relatively new and still challenging.
“This track, it’s long, it’s fast,” said Matt Mortensen, who competes in doubles. “It has some significant elevation drops. And we do see that at certain oth- er tracks as well, but at this particular track there is one curve that will probably make or break the race for all the disciplines, and that is curve nine.”
The curve goes left to right but ends short, meaning if athletes steer too early they’ll be pulled back into the curve and if they steer too late they’ll hit the wall.
Curve nine sets up for a straightaway on curves 10 and 11 that sends them into a left-to-right curve in 12.
“I guess the new part of Pyeongchang is how do you deal with being airborne?” U.S. bobsled pilot Justin Olsen said. “Every single track in the world is the same. You’re dealing with pressure, and that pressure allows for you to kind of put the sled where you want it. But no other track are you airborne and that’s normal. That’s the X factor.”
If sleds hit a nub on the right wall at the start of curve 10, it sends them bouncing into the left wall just as the straightaway drops away.
“It’s pretty abrupt, because you fly and then all of the sudden you abruptly turn,” U.S. bobsled pilot Jamie Greubel Poser said.
Added fellow U.S. bobsled pilot Elana Meyers Taylor, “It kind of feels like they built the top of the track and they built the bottom of the track and they put them together in the straightaway.”
Tae-Hee Choi, the project manager of the sliding centre for Daerim Industrial Corp., which designed the track, said it wanted to design challenging curves that hadn’t been seen before.
“Curve 9 is very unique,” he said in response to written questions from USA TODAY. “Athletes need to be able to con- trol their sled at just the right time — not too early, not too late and not too strongly. When the sled is not properly controlled, the sled will be led towards the inner part of the next curve, which won’t help them in cutting any time off their run.”
The U.S. bobsled team was among the countries that took an international training trip here in October. In a sport in which athletes are limited to two or three runs a day, time on the track was critical.
Olsen, Greubel Poser and Meyers Taylor come into the Games with about 30 runs down the track.
While curve nine is challenging, it’s far from the only unique curve.
Curve two is laid back flat to the roof, lacking a concave shape and pulling sleds up to the top of the track at a time when they haven’t built up much speed.
Curve 15 is similar to curve nine, sending sleds out of the curve to the right when the best line is to the left. Add to that an uphill coming near the finish, and it can be costly.