The lightning-fast track, built for the Turin Games, was reconfigured in 2005 for safety reasons. Test events were canceled after a Brazilian sustained a serious head injury and a Romanian broke an arm.

Some of the changes included raising the ice base between curves 16 and 17 — near where Retrosi banged into the wall.

In practice Sunday, Anne Abernathy, the 52-year-old slider nicknamed “Grandma Luge,” broke her right wrist in a crash and had to pull out of her sixth Olympics.

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Czech slider Marketa Jeriova also wiped out in the opening round. And Natalia Yakushenko of Ukraine didn’t start her second run after banging the wall hard.

Argentina’s Michelle Despain looked like a frozen pinball as she bounced back and forth off the barriers.

Several other racers had near-crashes, making some wonder if the track is too dangerous — especially for inexperienced sliders.

“It’s a very hard and difficult track,” said Germany’s Sylke Otto, the defending gold medalist, who twice lowered the track record and has a commanding lead over teammates Silke Kraushaar and Huefner. “Crashes are always possible, but it’s not dangerous. But it is a track where you have to concentrate the whole time.”

Zimny doesn’t buy the idea that it’s perilous.

“It’s just tricky,” Zimny said, referring to the left-left-left turn sequence toward the bottom of the track. “It’s an extremely technical track and extremely fast down there at the bottom. If you get something wrong in a curve, it’s just the way the curve sends you. You get shot up to the roof.”

Retrosi’s accident tempered a big day for the American team: Two-time Olympian Courtney Zablocki of Highlands Ranch, Colo., will enter the third run trailing Huefner by just .004.

The U.S. team has never won a singles luge medal at the Olympics. The Americans narrowly missed in the men’s event when Tony Benshoof finished fourth. Now it’s Zablocki’s turn for a shot at history.

“I feel a little relief going into the second day,” she said. “I hope I can get up there again, and if I can’t, I’ve shown that my sliding has improved in the last few years.”

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