体坛英语新闻：Luge to go on on a shorter course

WHISTLER, Canada, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- International Luge Federation officials announced on Saturday to proceed the luge training and competition, in spite of the tragic death of Georgian Nodar Kumaritashivili, but on a shortened course by starting lower for both men and women.

After much hand-wringing about how to proceed in the wake of the tragic training-run death of Kumaritashvili, a 21-year-old luge slider, luge officials decided to proceed with Saturday's men's singles competition. But it will start from what formerly was the women's start, lower on the mountain.

The announcement was made at a packed news conference on Saturday morning, in which International Luge Federation (FIL) officials delivered a curiously mixed message in response to the accident.

The decision to a lower start was made for the "emotional" well-being of athletes, which can be helpful to build up confidence aftre seeing a death tragedy on Friday.

But the president of FIL, Josef Fendt, denied the unsafety of the track by saying "I never said it's not safe and too fast, but it's fast."

The FIL officials stressed the track has been used for two years and no such accident have happened until Kumaritashvili's case.

"It is correct that we did not expect these speeds on the Whistler track," Fendt explained. "But after a while, we found out that the track is safe for the athletes."

"We still have to be respectful that their friend died on that ice," said Tim Gayda, VANOC's vice president of sport.

The track has hosted 5,000 runs in its two-year history without a fatal accident, Gayda said. He and FIL officials also said sliders have had more training runs on Whistler than on other new Olympic tracks.

He said smaller nations, such as Georgia, were given "opportunities" to get additional training runs here in January, but did not say whether any of those small national contingents availed themselves of that chance.

He also said VANOC followed FIL guidelines for track availabilty, and "largely" met those.

The wall where Kumaritashvili left the track has been raised. Other changes to the ice "profile" will help ensure sliders who lose control to remain in the track, Gayda said.

"The objective is to keep the athlete in the track -- no matter what," he said