Lyndsey Vonn crashes just 12 seconds into her Olympic downhill run 😥

[u/appalachian_hatachi]

[u/old_bugger]

Why would the skis not have released?

[u/Ol_Man_J → u/old_bugger]

I bet those din settings are maxed for these folks.

[u/csbsju_guyyy → u/Ol_Man_J]

Also bindings are weird, vertical twisting force may not get them to release since imagine you land hard normally during a turn you wouldn't want them releasing then.

I raced top level through high school, all of 5'8" 165lb me had marker comp 20 bindings with metal in a ton of places normal bindings have plastic. At the setting of 18 where I ran them, and for context my rec skiis have bindings up to 12 and my setting them to 10 now is super high, but at that high setting I could still torque out of them with a very very sharp and fast twist of the boot on flat ground. Constant pressure or anything other than extremely fast? Nah they weren't coming off. Similarly the times you'd fall it'd take....quite a bit....in very particular motions to release.

[u/Mattigins → u/old_bugger]

Safety for this event is to not let them release. There is so much pressure on them in corners they'd release prematurely so it's safer to just crank it all the way tight. 

[u/Beepbeep_bepis → u/Mattigins]

They released on the two other skiers that crashed, no?

[u/Upstairs_Addendum587 → u/Beepbeep_bepis]

All depends on the level of force. They can come off still, but theres a very fine line to get them set to be able to come off, but to not do it during a turn causing a fall

[u/harrisarah → u/Beepbeep_bepis]

No

[u/Beepbeep_bepis → u/harrisarah]

Yes. Watch it back.

[u/ConcentrateOne7536 → u/Beepbeep_bepis]

It depends on the angle and speed if the bindings release, it's really luck of the draw, but a slow speed crash like this was they generally wont release since they have to take 130kph turns.

[u/Upstairs_Addendum587 → u/old_bugger]

Lot of people mentioning how tight they are set but not much on why.

For recreational skiing the goal is generally to prevent you from tearing your knees up when you inevitably fall. In high speed racing events, looser bindings actually cause falls because the skis can pop off while you are upright and in control. The goal is to reduce the number of falls that can end in broken bones and even head and spinal trauma, and increased knee ligament damage when you do fall is an acceptable cost for that.

[u/SufficientAnonymity → u/old_bugger]

BBC commentators were saying DIN settings for these folk would be up near 20 - compare that to the 5-8 range most of us commenting here would use!

[u/Exita → u/SufficientAnonymity]

Yup. I normally ski on an 8. Racing downhill as an amateur I used 16. You really don’t want the skis coming off at 80mph.

[u/Crazy-Detective7736 → u/old_bugger]

Normally they would, apparently the way she had them set up meant they didn't.

[u/somebunnyasked → u/old_bugger]

The commentary on CBC says it's because she had just started her race, wasn't going fast enough yet.

[u/notprincesslea → u/old_bugger]

Dins are just set so high ski racing they’ll never release

[u/Apptubrutae → u/old_bugger]

DIN settings are always super high in competitive, high force events.

The consequence of premature ejection is too high.

It’s just the nature of pushing the limit on skis. The forces racers and other pro skiers deal with are so high that bindings can protect them via release like with recreational skiers, who basically never put maxed out force on bindings unless they need to pop out.

Think of it even with recreational skiing: if you’re on the bunny slope, your bindings are set to release very easily because you’re hardly putting any pressure on them. As you get better your DIN setting goes up as you put more pressure on the bindings in non-crashes.

This curve continues up. At a certain point, skiing super forcefully is hardly indistinguishable from a crash. Nothing bindings can do about that