Tragedy before it even begin

Posted by admin on Feb 16, 2010 in Sports | 0 comments

Every other Tuesday morning, I compile a list of sports articles that need to be written for the upcoming Mars’ Hill issue. During this past week, I gave the title “Olympic Highlights” for this article, hoping to highlight some Olympic stories so far. However, this story is anything but an Olympic highlight.

On Friday, February 12th, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games were set to begin with the Opening Ceremonies. They day started with high amounts of enthusiasm and energy, awaiting to start what was suppose to be a magical two weeks. CTV was showing smiling faces on their network consortium, Olympic fever was present and everyone was making plans to gather for the games.

However, around noon, tragedy struck. Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed his sled around turn 16 on the Whistler Sliding Centre during a practice run and was killed. The video of this horrific event explained it all as Kumaritashvilli came loose from his sled and crashed into a metal beam, travelling at speeds of over 140 km/h. Track officials were luckily standing nearby to assist the luger, but nothing could be done to save him.

While everyone understands the danger of winter sports; high speeds, sharp corners, and above average adrenaline levels, one could ask the question if this travesty was foreseen?

While hindsight may be 20/20, my case makes foresight even brighter. On Saturday, February 6th, Globe and Mail writer Jeff Blair wrote an article about the Whistler Sliding Centre. In that article, Blair quoted American luger Tony Benshoof as saying, “When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves.”

This statement turned out to be prophetic.

The Whistler Sliding Centre was built to be one of the most difficult tracks in the world to navigate through. During practice runs throughout the weeks and months prior to the Olympics, speeds of over 150 km/h were being consistently met. Many people felt that these speeds were excessive and unsafe for the athletes. An averge luge track will have athletes sliding down with speeds anywhere from 130-140 km/h. This is considered the pace for ultimate safety and good sliding conditions. Any faster and danger can occur.

However, while the IOC regretted this accident, track investigators were quick to blame Kumaritashvili for making a mistake heading into the turn that led to his demise.

But how can one honestly say this was strictly Kumaritashvili fault?

There is no doubt that the track was too fast. Athletes, commentators, analysts, and past athletes all agreed before the event even took place that while the venue may have passed inspection, the track was still unsafe. Why was it that as a result of this problem, VANOC quickly assembled a wall in between the track and the metal beam for added safety? Why were further precautions taken by moving the men’s starting block down to the women’s starting block to
decrease speed?

VANOC should be ashamed of the way this track was engineered and the way the situation resulted. Did VANOC once think that while Kumaritashvili may have made a simple mistake, so did 11 others that day also crashed on the same circuit? Did VANOC even consider the idea that while Kumaritashvili may have made a mistake that the reason was due to his sled travelling at unsafe speeds because of the tracks liability?

Great start Vancouver, at least the Opening Ceremonies were flawless. Oh wait, nevermind.