Those steel beams as well are there 100% down the entire length every 9ft down a track length of 4657ft. A wall has been been built overnight to enclose that area, and the ice coming out of the corner where he had issues has been reprofiled.
Here is the press release that just came out
The Coroners Service of British Columbia, responsible for the investigation of all sudden deaths, together with the RCMP, concluded their on-scene investigations on the track and transferred the decision to FIL when the track can be re-opened. The FIL, through its technical officials, further investigated into the cause of this tragic incident. Based on a physical inspection of the track and a thorough review of the tapes they have concluded the following:

It appears after a routine run, the athlete came late out of curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into curve 16. This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem he eventually lost control of the sled resulting in the tragic accident. The technical officials of the FIL were able to retrace the path of the athlete and concluded there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.

Based on these findings the race director, in consultation with the FIL, made the decision to reopen the track following a raising of the walls at the exit of curve 16 and a change in the ice profile. This was done as a preventative measure, in order to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again.


Also VANOC, and the IOC is NOT responsible in full track preparation and approval, this falls under the International Bobsleigh Federation which took over the track in the fall and was responsible for putting in the ice, profiling the ice, and giving the track the final approval.