21 Feb 2010
Life, death and luge (and arguing about it) in Georgia
By now everyone knows the story. A few hours before the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was flung from the track during a training run and collided with a steel support pylon a few feet away at 95 mph.
Anyone saw the video of the crash needed no more explanation of his fate. The extreme speed he was traveling and the head-first angle with which he struck the unpadded pylon made it clear no one could survive. Although it was all over for Kumaritashvili as the inhuman sound of man versus steel rang out, for everyone else, the games had just begun.
As the rest of the Georgian olympic team prepared to somberly march in the opening ceremony, aware their already small team had been tragically reduced even further, the hundreds of news reporters sent to Vancouver to cover the glitz and glamor of the opening ceremony suddenly had a story.
Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge immediately called a press conference to announce the tragic news, but then cheapened it with predictable CYA at the end saying, “this is a time for sorrow, not a time to look for reasons [for the fatal accident].”
That’s the wrong thing to say to reporters — or for that matter Georgians, who had just lost a celebrated comrade to what immediately appeared to be an avoidable accident. One way or the other, reporters began to find the reasons.
The Whistler track was built specifically for the Vancouver Olympic Games and was intended to be the fastest in the world. Other lugers at the event who had trained on the track expressed their own fears about the track’s speed, stability and safety. American bobsled pilot Steven Holcomb called the 13th turn of the track the “50-50 curve” because of the chances of a crash and Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg said she thought track builders were “taking it too far.”
“To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives,” she said.
There were dozens of crashes in the first days of training.
According the Wall Street Journal, the primary reason for the Whistler track’s location and speed was not so much competitiveness but marketing.
Initially the International Luge Federation and the International Federation of Bobsleigh and Toboggoning recommended the track be placed on Grouse Mountain where the inclines were right for projected track speeds and there was plenty of open space for development. Instead the Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc) decided to put it near a successful ski resort in Whistler where investment in the track would be financially sustainable after the games were over. From the WSJ article:
The available land at Whistler was steep and narrow. The committee found a plot about 100 yards wide by roughly 800 yards long. The topography meant the course would be unusually difficult and fast, according to the bobsled federation’s Mr. Gudzowsky. [...]
That meant the site was too narrow to build in typical speed-slowing long curves, such as “kreisel” curves, he said. Whistler’s had to be short and tight, which meant high gravitational forces against the driver in the curves and, toward the end, because the G-forces would be too much to bear, almost no curves, allowing sleds to break through previous top speeds.
The course’s dangers became part of its marketing.
“Vivid, violent and rough— the Whistler Sliding Centre is not for the faint of heart,” the Web site of the center, operated by Vanoc, said in promotional material that remained on the site this week. “The track has a rhythm that every slider must try to capture. Sliders must find it early in their run. If they lose it, it will be hard to get back on the beat.” [...]
After trials of the track in 2008, the course’s German designer says he told the Vancouver Games’ organizers and the international luge and bobsledding governing bodies that he was revising the track’s projected luge speed upward by 5.5%—to 96 miles an hour—nearly nine miles an hour faster than the standing 2000 world speed record.
Knowing all of this, it would make sense that Vanoc, when investigating the crash, would find that some modifications to the track would be necessary to ensure safety throughout the rest of the games. Nope.
“It appears after a routine run, the athlete came late out of curve 15 and did not compensate properly to make correct entrance into curve 16. This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem he eventually lost control of the sled resulting in the tragic accident. The technical officials of the FIL were able to retrace the path of the athlete and concluded there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track,” the Vanoc report concluded.
The president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, said in a news conference Saturday that officials should have listened more carefully to athletes’ concerns about the safety of the track. “I don’t claim to know all the technical details,” he said. “But one thing I know for sure, that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal.”Saakashvili said he was glad officials had decided to raise the height of the wall on the part of the track where Kumaritashvili crashed. “The good news is that they built it now,” he said. “But I think the best news would be, in the future, if they listen more to the grievances of sportsmen.”
“[...] the statement by Saakashvili is crazy.No mistakes in sports is “supposed” to lead to death. No mistake is “supposed” to happen at all. But mistakes do happen, and, in sports and outside of sports, they occasionally do lead to death. There are risks, and to take part in the sport, you have to accept them.Its great that there have been so few deaths in this extreme sport, but it’ still just that: an extreme sport. It has risks, and if you ask me, big ones. If hurl yourself down a mountain at those kinds speeds, you shouldn’t be all that surprised if something terrible happens, despite all the precautions. If the Georgian team wasn’t satisfied with the safety of the track, they shouldn’t have raced on it. It was their choice.
Point taken. But even I (for once) find myself somewhat on Misha’s side because, although we all know some mistakes are inevitable, every precaution should be taken to make sure that mistakes don’t lead to fatalities in sports.What I think is particularly shocking is that this occurred on the grandest stage of the sport. No one is all that surprised with a someone gets killed on a third-world carnival ride, but when an Olympic luge track has a low wall followed by unpadded steel columns right at the fastest and least stable portion of the course — well it’s fair to say that shouldn’t happen.To say that the track wasn’t dangerous is silly — someone died on it. To make the point that this luger, because he was young and ostensibly inexperienced, was going to find a way to kill himself on this track no matter what is also ridiculous. I don’t understand why the Canadians don’t just say: “Look, we’re sorry we didn’t let the athletes practice more at our facilities before hand, and this track was dangerously constructed, condolences etc., feel free to sue us, and move on. [...]“Instead they’ve kept the story alive and made a tragic accident into a blame game.
I agree with you [Member #1].This notion of “supposed to” in sport, or life, or anything else is a fantasy. To connect with a recent thread, it’s “supposed” to be safe to cross as a pedestrian at the zebra stripes in Tbilisi.
Consider this: if the track was so obviously flawed, so obviously flawed that the whole expat population of Tbilisi can see it, why did Kumaritashvili agree to use it? And for whatever reason, the more so it was, by the calculus that wishes to place blame (a calculus I reject) the more blame Kumaritashvili shares for using it.
An upcoming athlete, 21-years-old, from a tiny nation with a tiny team at the most prestigious sports event the world has to offer, knowing that the hopes for glory rest to a large extent on his shoulders. So he stands in front of that track saying : “This is too dangerous, I am not racing that?” Are you serious? And quite frankly, if he would have done it, who would give a damn? Nobody. It only would have made any ripples if its the world’s number 1 luger would have said, sorry, but not with me, this is not safe, people might have raised an eyebrow. And top athletes raised concerns before, nothing, absolutely nothing happened. [...]Its hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like the sides of the track are like 0.5-1 m high and then the plain metal beams start. This is not the first time a lugar flies out of the curve, the track. Why was there no barrier, padding? Really beats me. It was visually not pleasing? Someone forgot? I don’t understand. Sorry, but even to an outsider to this sport like me, this seems so blatantly obvious. Maybe even if they were padded, he would have still broken every bone in his body crashing into them at high speed, I don’t know, A question I can’t answer, but maybe it would have made the difference between life and death.
“[I]f Nodar’s father could so easily tell that the track was dangerous from photographs (and not just nodar’s father, a whole raft of people have come out of the woodwork, with similar claims), how come Nodar himself couldn’t? And your argument that there is too much pressure doesn’t ring true to me either. When I say Nodar, I mean of course Nodar and his team. Presumably Nodor must have had a coach. If he’s so young and inexperienced he must be getting advice, right?”
“If Nodar Kumaritashvili had come from large country or even a smaller country with wealthy television market, the athlete himself would never have been blamed. That would have been far too risky a PR move and wouldn’t never have been even hinted at. Moreover the “inexperienced slider” story they have concocted is pure bullshit, Kumaritashvili was ranked 44th in World Cup competition, which made him a very long way from being a novice. [...]I know their damage control plan, don’t blame the sacrosanct Olympics or even the track, blame the dead guy with the weird name from the country that doesn’t matter.
I may not be Georgian, but that really pisses me off.”
Member #1, was by now getting frustrated.
“I’m really am getting perplexed, that I just can’t seem to get my point across. And though I can’t really explain what is exactly going on, I’m beginning to seriously consider that I’m really having quite a different conversation than those who I am debating with. [German member] may correct me, but I believe the German expression is durcheinanderreden. [...]
I never said it was his “fault”. Who am I to say what risks a man should assume for what gain. Frankly, I would never ice climb. But those who want to have every right to do so without me waging a finger on them.If Kumaritashvili felt that he was ill prepared for the the race, or if the track was wrong, or if he felt that there were ANY reasons not to race, then the onus is on him to back out. It’s not easy to make that decision, but it comes with the territory.The one possible exception I can see to this is that if he was deliberately missled or if he was misinformed due to some incompetence.But this clearly doesn’t seem to have been the case. Everyone (I mean the media, not just you and the rest of this list) has been providing tons of evidence that everyone including Kumaritashvili knew the track was faster than usual, and more challenging than usual. A lot of people were calling it dangerous.Yet he chose to race. You can blame anyone you want about the track design, but Kumaritashvili must take responsibility for his own death.It’s got nothing to do with the size of Georgia or Kumaritashvili’s name. It could be John Smith from Toronto and the argument would be the same.”
“Your argument is a very old one in the sports world PR playbook, “Athletes know the risk and are thus responsible for any injury they might incur”. If the coach has them run laps on a hot summer day and they pass out, they knew the risk. If they get a brain damage from getting concussions while playing Gridiron, they knew the risk. If they run into a ski lift pillon it’s their own damn fault, they knew the risks. [...]Kumaritashvili never said he was ill prepared, he said he was scared of the track (where’d you get that from?). A lot of luggers said, and are still saying, they are scared of that track. So they designed the fasted luge track in the world, but he signed the waiver. They didn’t give him enough practice time (less than 15 minutes) but, oh, that’s his responsibility. They didn’t have any safety features on the most dangerous turns, but he knew the damn risks.Frankly, I was puzzled by this response from Canada. I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened in the US but I was truly surprised that “blame the victim” was Canada’s response. I expected more from the polite people of the north. I should have known better, politics is politics, it’s the same crap everywhere.
A simple test, if the racer who died was Canadian, would the response be the same? Never. The nation and the world would have a “soul wrenching conversation” about risk, safety, expectations and not pushing athletes too far, too fast. [...]p.s. Sorry to be so riled up [Member #1], but did you realize you wrote this: ”Kumaritashvili must take responsibility for his own death.”? wtf? The kid is dead dude, dead, its not a hypothetical.”
“[...] Perhaps, it just might have been different if the dead person was Canadian. But then, on the other hand that would mean that I’d just be arguing with a different bunch of people. In the end, it doesn’t seem like a big difference after all.I can forgive you for not agreeing with me, but I cannot forgive you for twisting what I’ve said around to make it seem like I’m somehow insulting a dead man. I’m not, and you should know that. I’d like to think that if he was watching me type this, he’d wholeheartedly agree with me.”
“If he had been Canadian he would have been a hero, not an untalented loser who brought it all on himself. That’s a huge difference and it would change everything. He would be honored in death, validated as an instrument of change, not made the scapegoat. [...]My whole point was they are blaming the guy who can’t defend himself, and then you wrote he had to take responsibility for his own death. Logically implausible yes? My impression has always been that you mistyped without realizing fully what you were saying. I just can’t see how I am twisting your words, if this indeed is what you are referring too. [...]“
I guess when such incidents happen, we have two conflicting and ultimately irreconcilable perspectives: that of piety, respect and grief; and then the sober assessment of the incident and the performance.In fact, the IOC clearly put the grief into the center of their announcement. The Luge Federation in turn, was forced to offer an analytical assessment, since other teams wanted to know whether to continue or not.Presumably the teams and the public wanted to know whether the track was at all controllable, or whether there were parts to it that simply could not be controlled at all. This is what the Luge Federation addressed (in a way that can seem callously clinical to those still shocked by the loss).
“100% with [#4] on this. Perhaps the fact that I witnessed first-hand all the grief and misery in Nodar’s family impairs my judgment, but I was really put off to find the prosecutorial line “must assume responsibility for his death” in my mailbox. Perhaps instead of going out of one’s way to prove a point, valid or not, it is better to be mindful of [members of the listserv], who feel really sorry about what happened. After all, nobody is going to take Olympic officials to task and they will live happily ever after. It is a complicated matter and it is all too easy to put all the blame on a dead man. Sorry to be moralizing or something, but one should know better than stand over a grave of a young man, who just died tragically, and saying “well, he had it coming.”
Before we begin a second mini witch hunt here may I suggest you go back and re-read what I’ve written a bit more carefully. [...]
All I have said it is his responsibility. I cannot imagine that he would disagree with me. I’ve rather imagined that someone that took part in a sport that so demanded singular responsibility would be appalled to see others blamed for risks that he knowingly assumed. Are you all so sure that if he had a second chance, given the probabilities and outcomes, he would not act act exactly as he did?