We are just a few days short of the nine year anniversary of the most famous on-field fatality in sports history. Dale Earnhardt’s crash and death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 left an indelible mark on all who saw it. It is ironic that, on the weekend of the 2010 version of the race, another on-field tragedy was in the headlines.
The video of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili’s gruesome death in an Olympic training run Friday will be just as hard to forget as the site of the #3 hitting the wall on turn four. Those involved in the sport should make no attempt to forget.
The impact of the crash can’t be fully comprehended as it was only visible from what amounts to the end zone camera. The speed at which his body was traveling can’t really be appreciated. We are fortunate that no view from the side is available.
A few hours after the 21-year old’s death, the XXI Olympic Winter Games were underway amidst the pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies. The Georgian team – now consisting of seven members – marched with black arm bands in memory of their fallen cohort. Today the games are in their third day. But the events of Friday will and should fill the minds of those who control the Olympics in general and the sport of luge in particular. Questions persists and answers must come.
The rationalizations of how this disaster occurred have, thus far, been weak and inconsistent. The International Luge Federation’s cold, clinical assessment was that Kumaritashvili "did not compensate properly to make the correct entrance". In other words, it wasn’t the fault of the course; it was the fault of the racer.
If that is so, then why did Olympic officials shorten the track by 190 yards the very next day? And why did they change the angle of the ice in certain places and raise the wall at the point of the accident? Why had a half dozen other racers – including two-time defending Olympic gold medalist Armin Zoeggeler of Italy – crashed on training runs? It’s very apparent that the track itself played a major part in what happened.
ILF president Josef Fendt claimed that the same course that insiders call “The Track of Fear” was safe while, at the same time, saying that the speeds on the track were much faster than the designers of the course originally intended. It’s a shame that this tidbit wasn’t known before the Olympics began. Except that it was known. In test events last year and in pre-Olympic training runs, the average speed was nearly ten miles an hour faster than designers expected. So they did know. And yet nothing was done until disaster came.
Why do luge tracks need to be so fast and dangerous anyway? Could the best racers not separate themselves from the rest of the pack if the speeds were in the, say, 60 mph range? We have to race in the upper 80’s?
Why do we have to have a curve like that at the very end of the course? What does that prove? Kumaritashvili ‘s father said Sunday that his son told him that he was scared of that final turn. He was tragically prophetic. And why, may I ask, are there a series of unpadded steel poles lining any part of this track? You can’t operate a mechanical bull without a zillion hay bales surrounding it but we let human sleds travel at near triple digit speeds with nothing but exposed, immovable steel to stop their flight.
It should be noted that the architect of the course confirmed that he was not really in his element designing a luge course. “I knew as much about bobsled, luge, as probably any average person does, which was next to nothing,” Laurenz Kosichek said in a recent interview. “Luckily, I think I'm a pretty quick study.” Perhaps, not quick enough.
I’m sure there are at least some luge enthusiasts who will dismissively shake their head and say that I just don’t understand the sport. And I will counter with perhaps the best summation yet of the incident, offered up by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. “I don’t claim to know all the technical details but one thing I know for sure. No sports mistake is supposed to lead to death.”