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Georgian Olympic luger dies during practice
Published: 13 February, 2010, 03:31
Edited: 17 February, 2010, 22:47
TAGS: Sport, Olympics, Georgia, Accident, Vancouver-2010
A men’s luge contestant died Friday after his sled crashed during a practice run in Whistler, Canada. Nodar Kumaritashvilli reportedly lost control of his sled, flying off the track and slamming into a steel pole.
The 21-year old native of Georgia bounced off the track, thought to be the fastest in the world, while traveling through its final curve at 145 km/h (90 mp/h). He was taken to a hospital where he later died.
"This is the gravest thing that can happen in the sport and our thoughts and those of the 'luge family' are, naturally, with those touched by this event," said Josef Fendt, the head of the International Luge Federation.
The tragic accident occurred only hours before the Winter Olympics were to be declared open and Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said it cast “a shadow over [the] Games.”
A representative of the Georgian delegation said the country would consider withdrawing from the Games.
Despite the tragedy, numerous winter sports experts are stating that the Whistler track isn't dangerous.
One of them, Chris Wightman from Canadian CTV described for RT the Kumaritashvili incident.
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What a tragic start to the Olympics, and such a loss to the Georgian team. The radio here said his father was also a luge athlete. Also the team members were wearing black armbands over their uniforms. God comfort them and his family. @ Lori, yes the track design should be reviewed. What have other luge athletes said about that track?
I feel sorry for him and his family. That said, who in the world approved the design of the end of the track with those EXPOSED STEEL COLUMNS right after a SHARP curve, NEXT to the track! It must have been the same engineer who designed the French tunnel with the exposed columns right down the center where Princess Diana was killed. I'm still mad about that, not because I was in love with Diana, but because of the work she was doing to ban land mines. Anything that someone can hit by going off a road or course, they will. There is a long, straight stretch, of a divided part of Interstate Highway 10 in East New Orleans, about 10 km long. About 40 years ago, two overpasses were built across it. The support columns are about 7 meters from the edge of the roadway. They are the only thing you can hit along the entire lenght of highway, because the highway is through a marsh. The roadway is three lanes wide in each direction. Yet, people still manage to occasionally run off the road, across the dirt, and hit the columns, even during the day.