Tragedy struck Bermuda's Patrick Singleton last night during the second run at the Olympic Luge track.

Singleton, who was disappointed after his 39th place during the first run, was "devastated" when he crashed on the final turn during the second and last run of the evening.However, he managed to stay with his sled and cross the finish line. So he will still be racing in the competition this morning during the final two runs.

But he knows that these Winter Olympics for him are basically finished.

"I didn't have good first run so I decided to go for it on the second run," said a dejected Singleton soon after coming off the track.

"I don't know what happened today - it just wasn't my day.

"I really wanted to make a comeback after that first run. I did try to do my best but in the end it was my mistake (which caused the crash).

"I am devastated now and I am caught up in the emotions of it all. I feel really, really bad."

Asked if he had hurt himself when he crashed at 130 kilometres per hour, Singleton said: "I hurt my pride. I feel numb right now. In a little while I will know whether I have physically hurt myself."

The Bermudian said he felt he had let a lot of people down.

"I know I'm a world class luger. But today I felt I let my dad, the people of Bermuda, the BOA and other people who believed in me, down. This is not a good feeling."

There were at least six other crashes last night and all of the lugers bar one managed to hang onto their sled and cross the finish line, thus staying in the competition.

Singleton's opening run was timed at 47.015 and left him in 39th place. His second was 48.690 which dropped him to 44th place out of the 49 remaining lugers.

One competitor from Korea was disqualified.

After two runs, Italy's Armin Zoeggler leads three-time gold medallist Georg Hackl of Germany by just 41 hundredths of a second.

On Saturday during the sixth and final training run, Singleton had finished in 30th place in 46.609. That race was won by Hackl.

After finishing that last practice race, Singleton had stood up and waved his arms at officials, indicating that his visor had come off.

He explained later: "I hit the wall between corners 14 and 15. It was just a brush really and I was angry because I shouldn't have done that, so I took my visor off and threw it. And it landed on the track. I was telling them to pick it up because I didn't want the next guy to come down and hit it. That would have been quite dangerous.

"However, the run from top to bottom was pretty nice, except those corners at 14 and 15. I felt I was just a little over aggressive and brushed the wall.

The problem is that there it starts to go uphill and I'm a little light and anything lost there can be pretty exasperating.

"I didn't realise my splits and finish during Friday's run were so good."

Singleton placed 25th in Friday's fifth run which marked his best finish in a field of this calibre.

"I thought the run was good but not that good. I really pulled off into a big gust of wind."

On Saturday, Singleton was hoping to rest and have a massage but since officials here postponed the sixth run on Friday he had to run it a day later.

He said: "I'm exhausted, but I saw the French guys and they looked really bad. I was debating whether I should go to the opening ceremony. Everyone said I had to go and I felt I had an obligation. And I'm glad I went. But when I woke up on Saturday morning I felt bad.

"It must have been dehydration and being outside all of the time. I left the village at 4.00 o'clock and didn't get back until 11.00, although just before the ceremony I was invited into a warm tent where there were a lot of celebrities. In there were the women's gold medal team from Nagano. They got so emotional when that World Trade Centre flag was brought in. I thought it was very symbolic but the Americans were falling apart.

"I said to myself 'This is really something else'."

Singleton felt on Saturday that his sled was ready to provide him with some fast times.

"My sled is quick. The work we did in the French workshop two weeks ago in Le Plange was excellent. I don't know if the French guys are regretting letting me use that.

"I also feel like I'm driving very good lines. This track is even faster than Le Plange where I trained, but it doesn't feel as fast because it is so smooth. Le Plange was a lot bumpier.

"There are 50 guys in this race and they're the 50 best in the world.

"Before I came to these Olympics I would have been happy to place 35th. Then after that 25th place on Friday, I'm saying to myself: 'Hold on, if I can get a 25, 25, 25 and a 25 on the runs, that would be great because I feel I can be consistent. And if I do get those 25 placings I could get into the top 20.

"I don't know if the people of Bermuda realise that being in the top 30 of the world is great. I'm going to go for everything and if I crash, I crash. I want the people in Bermuda to know I'm doing my best."

Singleton if here with his sled technician, Jonathan Edwards.

His father and manager Derek Singleton said: "Jonathan is from America and he couldn't get into the US team so he offered his services to Patrick to help him with his preparation of the sled which takes three to four hours each day.

"They have to file it down and sandpaper it. Patrick met Jonathan on a luge circuit. He has done a very nice job on the sled and it is going really fast - I hope not too fast!"

The two men prepare the sled at a room in the village each day and use various grades of sandpaper.

Derek added: "Sometimes you can get a nick in your runners from the ice and you have to work on that each day."