We watch the Winter Olympics with a need for speed, marveling when it's harnessed properly by an Alpine ski racer in a breathtaking run down a nearly vertical sheet of ice or by a speedskater in a record-breaking sprint around a slick oval.
And, yes, let's just go ahead and admit it: We ``oooh'' and ``aaah'' and can't quite bring ourselves to look away when everything goes horribly wrong. We tune in for the thrills, to be sure, but also for the chills and spills.
The athletes recognize that dual appeal.
``Our lives are on the line. That's what downhill skiing is. (Spectators) want to see us crash, but they want to see us get up,'' U.S. Ski Team member Steven Nyman says. ``It's the excitement, the speed, the air. Everything. It's our willingness to push ourselves to the limit and put our lives on the line for something that we love. That love is scaring ourselves.''
Fans love that, too, apparently.
Which is why, perhaps, when one does a search for ``Hermann Maier'' on YouTube, the first thing that shows up is a video with nearly 1 million views of the Austrian skier's head-over-heels disaster at the 1998 Nagano Games, a terrifying, out-of-control soar and fall - rather than a clip from one of his two gold medal-winning runs later at those Olympics.
Or why, perhaps, an NBC commercial featuring short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno shows the five-time Olympic medalist slamming into a barrier while other competitors scatter like so many human bowling pins.
Or why skicross is joining the Feb. 12-28 Vancouver Games, sending racers down a hill side by side, crashes always looming around the next bend. Former Alpine racer Daron Rahlves will make his fourth Olympic appearance and skicross debut this year.
``It's intense. It's wild. There's a lot of out-of-control. That's one of the attractions to me - that kind of challenge,'' Rahlves says of his new sport.
And then, somewhat derisively, he adds: ``Anybody can ski it on their own.''
Call it part of the ``X-Games-ification'' of the Winter Games undertaken by the International Olympic Committee, which added freestyle skiing and snowboarding to the program in the 1990s.
``It's the IOC looking for opportunities to make the Olympics more relevant to a younger demographic, and they see that in skicross,'' says Bill Marolt, CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.
The halfpipe tricks in snowboarding can be as scary as anything at the Olympics, such as when X Games superstar and 2006 Turin gold medalist Shaun White does one of his double corks - flipping twice, head over feet, while twisting. That's what Olympic hopeful Kevin Pearce was practicing Dec. 31, when he smacked his head on the pipe and was hospitalized with a severe brain injury.
Even more frightening: White's Double McTwist 1260, 3 1/2 spins wrapped inside two face-first flips. He talks comfortably, casually, about repeatedly hitting his helmet on the hollowed-out ice shell while perfecting that move.
``Ultimately, there is an inherent risk in these sports, and it's something that we all know and we understand,'' Marolt says. ``And at the same time, we are concerned about safety. We work hard ... to evaluate and analyze what we're doing, to make sure that we're not pushing the boundaries to the point where we exceed the ability of the athletes to perform.''
According to research done for the International Ski Federation, there are about 40 ``time-loss'' injuries per 100 athletes each season in Alpine, snowboard and freestyle.
A spate of serious injuries this season knocked several top Alpine skiers out of the Olympics, including reigning downhill world champion John Kucera, World Cup slalom champion Jean-Baptiste Grange and former women's overall World Cup champion Nicole Hosp.
That sparked talk about how to make the sport safer, although many of the skiers themselves - particularly, it so happens, the downhillers - don't want to make things too safe.
``You can't remove all the danger from it,'' says Scott Macartney, a speed specialist and two-time Olympian who was kept in a medically induced coma after a nasty fall while going nearly 90 mph during a race two years ago and didn't make the U.S. team for Vancouver. ``That's part of the deal.''
Indeed it is, and the sports seem to know what sells. In a recent news release announcing a deal with its ``official online gear partner,'' the U.S. Ski Team referred to racers as ``speed demons'' who ``live and breathe at eye-watering speeds, clinging to the edge of human capability and cheating death on a daily basis.''
Similarly, Alpine star Lindsey Vonn wants to make sure her sport gets enough credit for being ``as extreme as it gets.''
``We're going 85-90 miles an hour down a mountain - down a completely icy mountain! - and jumping and getting air and things like that,'' she says, ``and there's not many sports that you get that kind of danger and that kind of difficulty.''
No one who saw her wipeout while training for the downhill at the 2006 Turin Olympics will ever forget it. Vonn certainly won't. She cartwheeled down the slope, was airlifted from the Alps to a hospital, and somehow competed less than 48 hours later.
``By far the most pain I've ever been in my entire life,'' Vonn recalls, ``and one of the most devastating moments of my career.''
That she was invited to watch a video of that fall on a late-night TV talk show speaks volumes about the rubbernecking fascination we have.
The possibility for serious injuries is generally much higher in the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics. If track and field superstar Usain Bolt were to strain a hamstring, say, while trying to break his world record in the 100 meters, he'd pull up, his race would be over, and he'd move on.
Not that big a deal, in the scheme of things. No helicopter ride to a hospital required. No emergency surgery.
The consequences can be far more dire in skiing, snowboarding, speedskating or the sliding sports - and there are those who wear the risks as a badge of honor.
``I've had two friends die. I've seen legs shattered, knees blown, arms shattered, shoulders out of joint,'' defending snowboardcross Olympic champion Seth Wescott says. ``I've seen every trauma that can happen to the human body.''
In the freestyle moguls event, some athletes will dispense with tricks they did as recently as four years ago because there is more point value assigned to speed now.
``In our sport, you go down as fast and as big and as free as you can,'' U.S. moguls skier Bryon Wilson says, ``and the winner goes the fastest, the biggest and the cleanest.''
Asked if it's more important to be fast or safe, Wilson replies, predictably: ``Fast.''
This comes from a guy who estimates he's crashed more than 2,000 times.
``It's definitely an adrenaline rush,'' he says, ``because you're going as fast as you can.''
At Whistler, luge, bobsled and skeleton will be contested on a track that has the potential to be the fastest in Olympic history. World champion bobsledder Steven Holcomb dubbed one turn the ``50-50 curve,'' because he figures there's a 50-50 chance of making it through that spot upright.
``This is reaching the limit,'' American luger Tony Benshoof says. ``Every track that's been built since Calgary (in 1988) has gotten faster and faster and faster. Not that this track is unsafe, but I think we're pushing the threshold pretty far.''
He would know. Benshoof is a 21-year veteran of the USA Luge men's program and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the fastest recorded luge speed: 86.6 mph.
People have gone faster, but they didn't go through the lengthy process for Guinness certification. The last time Benshoof was on the track in Whistler, he was going about 95 mph - and others were speedier than that.
Which is sort of the point.
``It's fun to go fast,'' 2009 women's luge world champion Erin Hamlin says. ``That's what most of us do the sport for, so we're not going to complain too much.''
But there are limits.
The International Luge Federation closely monitors the construction of new tracks and how existing tracks are being iced. When the track at Lake Placid, N.Y., was built in the late 1990s, some German sliders said they would consider skipping competitions there because of fears about just how fast the course was.
Nowadays, that track is almost tame compared to others. The track at Cesana Pariol, Italy, was particularly frightening for luge racers at the crash-filled 2006 Olympics.
World records are not expected in long track speedskating, because - like in Turin four years ago - the Vancouver races will be contested at a low-land oval that slows times. As it is, tumbles are relatively rare in long track, even if Dan Jansen's heartrending falls at Calgary in 1988 are indelible Olympic moments.
Falls are a regular part of short track racing, though, where the sharp blades act like weapons.
``We skate with 17, 18-inch samurai swords on our feet,'' Ohno says. ``Anything can happen.''
Consider short track's J.R. Celski, a 19-year-old from Federal Way, Wash., whose right blade sliced deep into his left thigh, spilling blood on the ice, when he slid into the boards feet-first at the U.S. championships in September.
The good news? Celski returned to the ice in November, and he'll be competing at Vancouver.
``I pulled my blade out of my leg and looked at it. I'd never seen anything like it before. It was an experience,'' he says, before adding: ``It was actually pretty cool, though.''
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AP National Writers Paul Newberry and Eddie Pells, and AP Sports Writers Doug Alden, Raf Casert, Andrew Dampf, Will Graves, John Kekis, Tim Reynolds and Tom Withers contributed to this report.
