Organizers cut short Russian luge guru’s Olympic dream
Published: 16 February, 2010, 08:03
Edited: 16 February, 2010, 14:36
Russia's hopes of a second gong in Canada have been put on hold, after Turin silver medalist Albert Demchenko finished just outside the podium in the men's singles luge event.










Albert Demchenko was awesome to watch. He displayed power and strength. I think he deserves some cash from the Russian Olympic purse but please RT stop sulking and spiking Canada organizers of these games. Starting these games at the women’s position was done for psychological reasons and Albert should have adjusted to this new situation. A Russian officials was quick to blame Canada for the death of the Georgian luger, now RT is blaming the organizers for Demchenko failure to metal. This is sad. I saw with my own eyes Demchenko’s final run and he was much slower than the two Germans who took the Gold and the Silver and the Italian who took the third place. Four Canadians also ended in top ten and any one of them could have won a metal -since they have been training in this facility for a long time. I have not seen similar source grapes coming from the Russian sport federation in the Canadian lugers This cannot be good for Russia. Russia is doing badly in these games in many other areas such as in the high jump, speed skating, freestyle ski, female Hockey. The Russian Federation needs to provide more funding to such key programs. For winter counter with glorious past history of winning lot of metals in Winter Sports, since the fall of Soviet Union Russians have been doing more western style parting and clubbing drinking than investing in youth sports and health living. This needs to change and thinking the games at Sochi is great way to begin bring back Russia at the top of the winter sport.