Earlier this week, the New York Times discussed the upcoming Olympic games and mentioned that these games could be the most dangerous we’ve seen yet, with athletes trying even more difficult snowboarding tricks or with the addition of ski cross. Athletes are going faster than ever before with the help of new equipment and engineering, such as the Whistler Sliding Center.
Only a few days later, the 2010 Olympics claimed its first victim: Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a horrific accident in Whistler. To make matters worse, the IOC has conveniently blamed his death on his own inability rather than a flaw with the track.
Reading the articles that have come out before and after the accident, it seems that many professionals were worried about the state of the track and the high speeds athletes clocked (6 mph faster than anywhere else in the world). Yet it takes the loss of a young life for anyone to show any kind of restraint. Many are now thinking how fast is too fast? And are the speeds that are higher than ever before really necessary?
How the IOC can insist that the rider is at fault is disgusting. Think about it: numerous skilled riders have stated their concern in advance and there have been many accidents already on the track since it opened in 2008. Shouldn’t that be reason enough for concern before died?
Sure Kumaritashvili is at fault. This is a dangerous sport, but was it Kumaritashvili that built poles right next to the outside of the track? What is Kumaritashvili that made the wall coming out of turn 16 so low, even when riders are still traveling at high speeds at the end of the course? That’s doubtful. I don’t understand how engineers couldn’t have a.) listened to rider complaints, and b.) couldn’t have possibly foreseen come kind of freak accidents that would come with such high speeds. According to the designer, who has worked on six Olympic tracks, no one has ever flown out of the track before. Then again, riders haven’t traveled at speeds like that before either.
This is the best part: while blaming only the rider, the Vancouver committee has made a change to the curve 16 in preparation for Saturday’s events. Now let’s get this straight: it’s the rider’s fault that he died and nothing is wrong with the track… but you are making adjustments to it? How stupid does their PR machine think people really are? When the IOC president is saying things like, “This is a time for mourning, not for wandering why this happened,” there seems to be a complete lack of commitment to total athlete safety.
But maybe that’s the point. Spilled blood, or the promise of it, is good for ratings, right? Don’t we instinctively love to see injury as much as we love to see athletes on the podium? Should the motto of this year’s Olympics be: “Vancouver 2010: now with more blood!”? Since the Olympics have been about sponsorships and money and less about the art and beauty of sport, maybe this a very extreme extension of what the IOC was hoping for when they ignored athlete’s concerns and left Whistler’s track as it was. They were hoping for high speed and the high drama that comes with potential injury, but what they got instead was the death of a young athlete.
