Austrian Bobsled Crash Flips Three Sleds at Curve 7 in Cortina
An austrian bobsled crash during the second heat of the Olympic four-man competition left pilot Jakob Mandlbauer taken from the track and sent to hospital, and forced officials to halt the session at the Cortina Sliding Centre.
Austrian Bobsled Crash unfolded around the same curve
Three sleds — Austria, France and Trinidad & Tobago — tipped onto their sides around the large, U-shaped Curve 7 about halfway down the roughly 1, 750-meter track, race. In the Austrian sled were pilot Jakob Mandlbauer, Daniel Bertschler, Sebastian Mitterer and Daiyehan Nichols-Bardi; teammates Bertschler, Mitterer and Nichols-Bardi were seen leaving the scene under their own power.
Medics, stretcher and immediate outcomes
Mandlbauer was down on the track for a prolonged period and medics brought a stretcher to the scene before he was taken to hospital; team press attaché Christoph Iglhauser said, "Jakob is on his way to hospital. He's not so bad. It's just a check. No injury, only a check. He'll be fine. " One account said medics tended to Mandlbauer for about 10 minutes before the session resumed, while another described the competition delay as approximately 20 minutes.
The Austrian Olympic Committee later confirmed Mandlbauer was stable and able to move all of his limbs after being checked at the hospital. Volunteers were pictured repairing the areas of the track where the crashes occurred.
Disqualifications, standings and the next run
Bobsled rules require all four athletes to cross the finish line with their sled for a run to count; because that did not happen, all three teams registered a "Did Not Finish" and were disqualified from the competition. None of the three teams had been in medal contention going into Run 2.
Canada held the lead at the time of the incident; Canadian pilot Jay Dearborn said, "Sitting in the leader box, it's tough to see. Sleds going over in the Olympics, you don't really want to see that. " Markus Treichl's Austrian sled remained in 10th place heading into the next phase of the event.
There are 16 curves on the Cortina Sliding Centre track. Competitors and the course has tricky sections that test pilots' lines, and earlier training crashes had raised concerns about particular turns.
The third run of the four-man competition is scheduled for Sunday morning, when teams still in the event will return to the Cortina track for the next timed runs.
