As a result, there is little incentive for them to self-report injuries - and remove themselves from valuable training time or competitions. One problem, scientists and former athletes said, is that sliding-sports athletes often risk their own financial security to bankroll their Olympic dreams. “I completely believe that this is the hidden pandemic, the brain injuries in sports,” Smith said. An examination revealed damage to her brain. She cited the death of Adam Wood, a Canadian bobsledder who died by suicide in 2013, as a reason she has taken her symptoms seriously. Smith has struggled with a range of issues, including depression, anxiety and memory loss, since retiring from competition in 2004. They developed a survey involving concussion and injury histories that they hope to soon disseminate to prominent sliding athletes, but they haven’t yet received cooperation from governing bodies. She has joined Peter McCarthy, a neurophysiologist at the University of South Wales Christina Smith, a retired Canadian Olympic bobsledder and Mark Wood, a longtime skeleton coach, in an effort to make the sport safer. But crashes, Snyder said, are just part of the concern: The cumulative effects of rattling vibrations felt on the rides may be just as important. She said she sustained five or six concussions before a doctor told her to choose between the sport and her brain. Snyder, a former skeleton athlete for Israel’s national team, experienced both the rush and the consequences. You’re already fully in love with that feeling and that rush.” “And then, by the time you’re old enough to realize that what you’re doing has consequences, it’s too late. “We start really young and really low and they feed you that addiction very slowly to hook you,” said Terdiman, who recently retired after not qualifying for the Games. For him, luge provides much more of a thrill. Jayson Terdiman, 33, an American luger and two-time Olympian, has jumped from a plane. The potential consequences, though, can be an afterthought amid the racers’ quest for speed, adrenaline and victory. Still, luge often produces the highest speeds in sliding sports, and in 2010 Nodar Kumaritashvili, a 21-year-old luge athlete from Georgia, died during a training accident before the Vancouver Olympics. Luge athletes experience some of the same forces as competitors in bobsled and skeleton, but they race feet first and are equipped with a support strap that can reduce head trauma. “But you don’t want the sled speeds to exceed what the track has been designed for.” “All teams are aiming to get faster and that’s the name of the game,” said Dwight Bell, the general secretary of the International Luge Federation, the sport’s global governing body. They will chase those medals at China’s Yanqing National Sliding Center, where the track’s 16 winding curves are designed to resemble a dragon and three uphill sections, including a 360-degree turn, were constructed with one overarching goal: slowing the sleds down. Virtually every country with aspirations of winning Olympic medals at this month’s Beijing Olympics in bobsled, skeleton and luge is now aligned with a racecar designer, aeronautics expert or rocket scientist. The expanding incorporation of technology into sliding sports is happening with one overarching goal: making sleds faster. ![]() Rocket technology has been incorporated into the designs of new Chinese bobsleds. Ferrari partnered with Italy’s bobsled and skeleton teams long ago. Luge’s sleds integrate data from mechanical and aeronautical engineering professors. Follow our latest coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics
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