Bad Spill Replaces Thrill

CESANA, Italy — As Samantha Retrosi’s limp body skittered across the ice, her face pressed against the frozen surface, silence fell over the high-speed luge track atop this sleepy Alpine village.

Retrosi’s terrifying crash Monday provided a scary reminder of how dangerous riding a sled at 80 mph can be.

And, that the Olympics aren’t always fun and games.

“It was a bad crash.... But the bottom line is that she’s going to be OK,” U.S. team leader Fred Zimny said.

Retrosi, 20, from Saranac Lake, N.Y., competing in her first Winter Games, suffered a concussion and cut her chin in a wicked spill on the first day of women’s luge when several of the world’s top racers failed to stay upright.

She suffered short-term memory loss and is out of the Games, but “everything is looking good,” said Ed Ryan, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s director of sports medicine. “All of her scans have come back normal.”

Retrosi was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Turin, where she will be reevaluated this morning. “We expect her to be discharged” at that time, Ryan said.

As she neared the bottom of the speedy course -- redesigned last year because of safety concerns -- Retrosi smacked the wall, flipped her sled and slid facedown with her right arm twisted awkwardly to her side.

The track, built for the Turin Games, was reconfigured in 2005 for safety reasons.

Test events were canceled after a Brazilian suffered a serious head injury and a Romanian broke an arm.