It’s a shocking news to read of an Olympic athlete dying at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. The news was even more tragic that it happened only few hours before the actual official opening ceremony, the joyous of occasions when athletes march on the Olympic stadium sporting nothing but smiles.
While the Georgian delegation chose to continue competing at the games, their somber faces told the story. Fortunately death of an Olympic athlete at the games is not a common occurrence. Over the last one hundred years of the modern Olympic Games there have been only a handful of tragic accidents. Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death, the Georgian luger that died on Friday on the luge track at Whistler Mountain, was only seventh death at the Olympic Games, two of which have occurred at the summer Olympic Games and now five at the Winter Olympic Games.
Olympic Games have certainly experienced their share of tragedies, the most horrific of which was the death of eleven members of the Israeli athletic delegation at the 1972 Summer Olympic games in Munich at the hands of terrorists. In 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic Games two people died at the hands of another fanatic, but sporting deaths have been relatively few.
Of the five death at winter games, three were skiing related in crashes that had to with collisions, either with another human or hitting a tree and basically were a result of ineffective management of the downhill courses, either permitting too many people on the course or not accounting for a possibility that a skier could go off course and hit a tree.
The tragic accident in luge on Friday was the second in the luge event at the Olympic Games. The first was of a British luge athlete who died during his training run for the first Olympic luge competition at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. At the time his death could have been in part assigned to the fact that luge was a new Olympic event and inexperience might have been the more likely cause rather than the track design.
On another hand, the athletes that medaled at the Innsbruck Olympic Games in 1964 in luge race were all from only three countries, Germany, Austria and Italy, and one look over the list of top finishers in luge at all the Olympic Games since reveals that the event has been dominated by athletes from the nations that share the Alps.
Luge, like the bobsled, originated in St Moritz, Switzerland, a prominent ski resort in the Alps, in the late nineteenth century. Although most of the best artificial luge and bobsled tracks are situated in the Alpine resorts, few exist elsewhere in Europe, namely in Norway, Russia, Poland and Slovenia. Japan built a fine track for the Nagano Olympics. In the United States there are famous tracks in Lake Placid and Park City. Obviously cost of construction has all to do with the fact why state of the art luge and bobsled tracks are not found in too many countries, and while mountains with snow are found in many a country and sledding is a favorite and inexpensive pastime over the world, becoming a skilled luger ready to compete at the Olympic Games is another matter.
While the Whistler luge track had received a lot of publicity and its speeds of over 90 miles per hours were noted with some alarm, as was its safety, as well as critical voices were concerning the limited access that was being strictly streamlined, it has been also well documented how many lugers in fact crashed on the track before the fatal accidents.
The Vancouver Olympic Games luge competition finished last night, and no major crashes took place, so although the event is now history some unanswered issues remain.
Statistics showed that Nodar Kumaritashvili competed in five World Cup races this season and placed 44th in the standings after the races in Igls, Altenberg, Lillehammer, Koenigssee, Winterberg, Oberhof and Cesana. Prior to Casena race in Italy, the last luge World Cup race before the Vancouver games he had only 4 points and was ranked 57th out of 65 racers listed. At Cesana, Italy he did considerably better collecting 13 points, and finishing with 17 points on 44th place in the standings before the Olympics.
The argument that he was inexperienced, that luge athletes from smaller nations may not have enough time to practice on top courses may be in part valid. However, the fact that in the World Cup standings behind him finished athletes from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, India, Taiwan, Slovakia, Korea, Rumania, Hungary, Argentina, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia but also luge superpowers (with certainly state of the art race tracks) such as Japan, Russia and USA proves that the argument may not be a valid one.
And just for the record, Nodar Kumaritashvili stood ahead also of Bruno Banani of Tonga!! Yes, Tonga, the South Pacific nation, where the only ice they have, not to mention a snow mountain on which to build a luge track, is in their refrigerators! Of course I am just joking, we already know Jamaica has a pretty good bobsled team and last night in luge we saw quite a good run by a luger from India!
No matter how much one wants use the argument that athletes from smaller nations may not be experienced enough or that the sport is simply too dangerous to let less experienced athletes to compete does not stand on its own merit. When the news of the fatal accident became known, and NBC sure brought us numerous repeats of the gory details, albeit with words of warning how graphic the video document was, and one could see how the luge athlete obviously lost control and bounced off of the sheltered wall and was catapulted over the edge of the open wall, landing smack against the steel posts that were right there, the Whistler accident clearly belongs into the category of an improperly track design in terms of safety.
I mean, how stupid can there be a design of a luge and bobsled race track that far accedes any speeds previously ever recorded on any luge race tracks in Europe, Russia or Japan, and on the final turn where races can experience as much as 7Gs, and not figure out that one could bounce of as Nodar Kumaritashvili did, and let these idiotic poles right there, making sure there are more than one so that one can makes sure to hit at least one, stand there without any padding, foam, bales of straw or any protection against impact whatsoever!
Let’s be honest in an assessment – that the deficiency in the design was clearly negligence that is downright criminal! How anything like this could actually pass any kind of safety inspection!
By Saturday, the day after the tragic accident, NBC was set to spare us the graphic video of the Olympic luger’s last seconds of life, professing their sensitivity on the issue, whether toward the Georgian athlete’s family, his fellow athletes on the Georgian delegation, when in fact even his father was not interested in viewing his son’s last seconds of life, the video had by then been well offered for never-ending viewing on infinite number of blogs and YouTube.
Vancouver games organizers and the Olympic Committee may be praised for the sympathetic expression of grief, the staged one minute of silence and tears shed by various high ranking officials, but the question remains – was this a preventable accident? Should the design of the Whistler track actually pass inspection?
Whatever was the designer thinking is one thing, but should whoever did the approving of this track as safe and its being even open, and its being in fact also approved for use at the Winter Olympic Games 2010, be actually held accountable?
It’s not we must see heads fall, but if we are to put a closure to this tragic accident, most of all we need to realize that the luge tracks maybe best enclosed in tubular Plexiglas, or behind glass as that used above the boards in ice hockey, and the only parts that should be left open are those on any straightaway.
Deciding to lower the starting point in order to diminish speeds is one way to decrease the chance of accidents but the solution is still not dealing with any kind of proper design guidelines for artificial luge and bobsled tracks actually being in place.
No matter what we will do from here on will bring Nodar Kumaritashvili back to life, but where we go from here may only assure that future accidents, in any Olympic sport, may have a less chance to occur.
