I actually saw the video at liveleak and didn't think it looked that bad... I mean it happened so fast, and you almost can't see the guy.

I have to say though, those steel bars are really close to the track... don't they have any safety standards for the tracks? It seems to me like the bare minimum they could do is have a big clear area around the track.

Did you get a video with a good feed? I saw the one at the CTV Olympics website.

From what I've heard, but don't know for sure, those bars hold up the upper part of the course. Still, they could have padded them at the very least. It may not matter when someone is going 150 km/h, but at least it's something.

I'm sure there would be other ways of holding it without using vertical bars right there... maybe an exercise they'll feel encouraged to try after this incident.

As for the video, I don't know how it compares to others... I just saw that one, it's on liveleak's main page.

A sad day indeed. I just watched the video, it's not as bad as people have made out because most of it is occluded by the pillar he hit. But still pretty bad.

wheres the video? ctv wants me to download silverlight and that seems like a waste. the one link i found on youtube was taken down.

Youtube ones are down due to copyright issues or something.

The liveleak angle is a tad different and that glare got in the way. The CTV one a little bit more to the left of the pillar. Here's a still someone took from the video (posted below, in case someone doesn't want to see the picture):