Toad
02-13-2006, 04:01 PM
Feb 13, 1:07 PM (ET)
By TIM REYNOLDS
CESANA, Italy (AP) - U.S. luger Samantha Retrosi was carried off on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance after a frightening crash on the second run of the Olympic competition Monday night. She appeared to be unconscious and sliding underneath her sled through at least two curves of the track, and fans who were lined alongside the wall waved their arms to summon medical personnel to the scene.
A large drape was pulled across the curve of the track where Retrosi stopped, shielding her from view. There was no immediate word on the severity of her injuries.
Watching on a large video screen while talking with reporters, Germany's Tatjana Huefner gasped and stared blankly at the image for several seconds.
"It's a very, hard and difficult track," said Germany's Silke Otto, who twice lowered the track record. "Crashes are always possible but it's not dangerous. But it is a track where you have to concentrate the whole time."
As Retrosi was being attended to, athletes, coaches and officials gathered around TV monitors near the finish area in silence. The crowd, which had been dancing earlier in the day, stood quietly while competition was halted.
Retrosi, a 20-year-old from Saranac Lake, N.Y., was making her Olympic debut. She was 18th in the season's World Cup standings, including a career-best fourth-place showing at Lake Placid, and was second in this season's U.S. national championship.
The track was modified last year for safety reasons. Test events were called off after a Brazilian sustained a serious head injury and a Romanian broke an arm during events in February 2005.
Some of those changes included raising the ice base between curves 16 and 17 - about the spot where Retrosi slammed into the wall.
Retrosi's was one of several crashes during the opening day of the women's event - including one that knocked out Italy's Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova, who probably was more familiar with her home nation's venue than anyone else in the field.
She crashed on her first run and was disqualified. Ranked fourth in the world this season, she had been expected to challenge the powerful German squad for a medal in the women's event.
Oberstolz-Antonova, the second slider down the track in the first run, was nearing the bottom when she went high into a curve, brushed the concrete wall and came off her sled. She walked away and didn't appear to be injured.
Czech slider Marketa Jeriova also wiped out in the opening round. And medal hopeful Natalia Yakushenko of Ukraine didn't start her second run after banging the wall hard and sustaining an undisclosed injury in her opening heat, which she finished.
Several other racers had near-disasters as well after Retrosi's wreck, including Canada's Alex Gough and Slovakia's Jana Sisajova, who came off her sled in a turn. She lay on the ice for several seconds before climbing over the barriers apparently unharmed.
And Argentina's Michelle Despain bounced off the walls repeatedly in both of her runs, yet managed to finish both and somehow left smiling after her second - during which she struck concrete at least six times between the start and bottom and often sprayed ice chips about the track
By TIM REYNOLDS
CESANA, Italy (AP) - U.S. luger Samantha Retrosi was carried off on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance after a frightening crash on the second run of the Olympic competition Monday night. She appeared to be unconscious and sliding underneath her sled through at least two curves of the track, and fans who were lined alongside the wall waved their arms to summon medical personnel to the scene.
A large drape was pulled across the curve of the track where Retrosi stopped, shielding her from view. There was no immediate word on the severity of her injuries.
Watching on a large video screen while talking with reporters, Germany's Tatjana Huefner gasped and stared blankly at the image for several seconds.
"It's a very, hard and difficult track," said Germany's Silke Otto, who twice lowered the track record. "Crashes are always possible but it's not dangerous. But it is a track where you have to concentrate the whole time."
As Retrosi was being attended to, athletes, coaches and officials gathered around TV monitors near the finish area in silence. The crowd, which had been dancing earlier in the day, stood quietly while competition was halted.
Retrosi, a 20-year-old from Saranac Lake, N.Y., was making her Olympic debut. She was 18th in the season's World Cup standings, including a career-best fourth-place showing at Lake Placid, and was second in this season's U.S. national championship.
The track was modified last year for safety reasons. Test events were called off after a Brazilian sustained a serious head injury and a Romanian broke an arm during events in February 2005.
Some of those changes included raising the ice base between curves 16 and 17 - about the spot where Retrosi slammed into the wall.
Retrosi's was one of several crashes during the opening day of the women's event - including one that knocked out Italy's Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova, who probably was more familiar with her home nation's venue than anyone else in the field.
She crashed on her first run and was disqualified. Ranked fourth in the world this season, she had been expected to challenge the powerful German squad for a medal in the women's event.
Oberstolz-Antonova, the second slider down the track in the first run, was nearing the bottom when she went high into a curve, brushed the concrete wall and came off her sled. She walked away and didn't appear to be injured.
Czech slider Marketa Jeriova also wiped out in the opening round. And medal hopeful Natalia Yakushenko of Ukraine didn't start her second run after banging the wall hard and sustaining an undisclosed injury in her opening heat, which she finished.
Several other racers had near-disasters as well after Retrosi's wreck, including Canada's Alex Gough and Slovakia's Jana Sisajova, who came off her sled in a turn. She lay on the ice for several seconds before climbing over the barriers apparently unharmed.
And Argentina's Michelle Despain bounced off the walls repeatedly in both of her runs, yet managed to finish both and somehow left smiling after her second - during which she struck concrete at least six times between the start and bottom and often sprayed ice chips about the track