Luge Athlete’s Death Casts Pall Over Games
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Vancouver Olympics were set to open with the most daunting and dangerous collection of events the Winter Games had ever seen, but before the competitions even began, a luge athlete died in a high-speed crash that overshadowed Friday night’s opening ceremony and intensified concerns over the safety of the Games themselves.
The athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili of the Republic of Georgia, lost control of his luge sled near the end of his training run while traveling nearly 90 miles an hour — about as fast as any luger had ever gone before the Whistler Sliding Center track was completed in 2007.
The sled, with Kumaritashvili riding atop on his back, feet first, bounced off a side wall and threw Kumaritashvili over the short, ice-covered concrete wall on the left. He slammed into vertical supports that hold a canopy and lights over the course. Medics arrived immediately, and Kumaritashvili was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Kumaritashvili, from Borjomi, Georgia, was 21.
Hours after the accident, Georgia’s Olympic delegation wore black armbands as they marched in the opening ceremony.
The accident will raise questions not only about the safety of the track but also about the International Olympic Committee’s shift in recent years toward increasingly dangerous sports. It has added events like skier cross and snowboarding that feature high drama driven by danger. Although luge is not new to the Games, technology and track design have rapidly pushed speeds higher.
Canadian sports officials will face criticism for providing foreign athletes with relatively little access to most Olympic venues in an effort to give Canadians a competitive advantage for the Games. Canada’s Own the Podium program pumped about $110 million into a medal push for the home team. It set a goal of 35 medals, and the sliding sports of luge, bobsled and skeleton were viewed as likely mines for gold, silver and bronze.
While Vancouver Organizing Committee officials followed the guidelines established by sports federations for allowing access, they did not follow tradition. Many foreign athletes and federations were peeved over the relatively little training time on venues, from the ski courses to the speedskating oval and the sliding center.
Kumaritashvili, ranked 44th in World Cup standings this season, did not participate in a World Cup event at Whistler last year. He made nine runs down the track at an international training week in November.
His crash at Whistler occurred on his fifth training run of the week. He crashed higher on the course during his second run on Wednesday.
The two-time defending gold medalist Armin Zoeggeler of Italy was among many athletes who have crashed in training this week.
“Speculations about his experience to me seems a little bit unfair and misleading,” Nikolos Rurua, Georgia’s minister of culture and sport, said in response to questions about Kumaritashvili’s qualifications for competing.
Kumaritashvili is thought to be the first Olympic athlete killed during training or competition since the 1964 Innsbruck Games, when two athletes (one in luge, one in skiing) were killed during training before those Games opened. In 1992 in Albertville, France, Nicholas Bochatay of Switzerland, training for the demonstration sport of speed skiing, crashed into a snow-grooming machine on a public trail and died.
An investigation into the accident was under way, Rogge and the Vancouver Organizing Committee chief executive John Furlong said, but there was no immediate decision about whether to postpone the two-day men’s luge competition, scheduled to begin Saturday. The International Luge Federation and I.O.C. officials will meet with team leaders to hear any concerns about the safety of the track.
Josef Fendt, the president of the International Luge Federation, was one of many concerned about the track’s safety after an international training week there in November 2008. After seeing record speeds and a number of spills by skilled riders, he wondered if it was too fast. “It makes me worried,” he said.
Speed and safety dominated talk among bobsledders and skeleton athletes, too, who share the track with luge. Steve Holcomb, the driver of the top United States bobsled team, coined Curve 13 “50-50,” for the chances of negotiating a sled through it successfully.
Last February, at a luge World Cup test event for these Olympics, Felix Loch of Germany reached 153.937 kilometers per hour (95.652 miles per hour), about six m.p.h. faster than speeds at any other track. Fendt and the world’s top riders began to embrace the track as familiarity slowly settled fears.
On Friday, Fendt said in a statement, “This is the gravest thing that can happen in sport, and our thoughts and those of the ‘luge family’ are naturally with those touched by this event.”
When asked if future Winter Olympics should have a luge track that is not as challenging as the one here, Rogge said: “It’s not a time to look for reasons. That will come in due time.”
Last August, Ron Rossi, the executive director of USA Luge, said he worried about inexperienced lugers on the Whistler track, particularly near the bottom of the course.
“The speed doesn’t bother me,” Rossi said. “That said, you get a whole spectrum of skill levels at an Olympic Games. I do have a concern that people who are a little less experienced have the potential to get seriously hurt.”
Kumaritashvili was approaching the end of Curve 16, a sweeping turn to the right nicknamed Thunderbird, and was just moments from the finish line.
He apparently knew he was in trouble. As he came down off the high-banked turn, he raised his left hand and dropped his feet to the ice. Off balance, he struck the right wall at the end of the curve, appearing to strike his head, and the collision upended his sled. Kumaritashvili was thrown hard to the left of the course, just above the short, icy wall of the track, and slammed into vertical supports that hold a canopy and lights over the course.
The sled remained on the track and stopped the timer at the finish line while Kumaritashvili was tossed.
The track was immediately closed, broadcast equipment was cleared and the police — both municipal and Royal Canadian Mounted Police — lined the track to keep people away. The broadcast lights remained on to aid in the investigation. The other luge athletes were told of the death and then sent back to the athletes’ village.
Furlong, the chief executive of the Vancouver Olympics, said he passed along his sympathy to Kumaritashvili’s family, and to members of the Georgian federation, which included eight athletes. Furlong said the federation members had described Kumaritashvili as “an incredibly spirited young person.”
“He came here to feel what it’s like to be able to call himself an Olympian,” Furlong said. “We are heartbroken beyond words to be sitting here. It’s not something I have prepared for or ever thought I needed to be prepared for. My team is devastated by this.”