Categories: Andrew Coyne

Death on the track

Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili killed during an Olympic training run

by Andrew Coyne on Friday, February 12, 2010 3:45pm - 97 Comments

A freak accident? Maybe. But at the moment, this does not look good on VANOC:

Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled near the finish Friday, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center.

Leave aside how it was possible for the unfortunate Georgian luger to go over the track wall. Why was there an unpadded steel pole anywhere near the finish line?

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of the awful moment just before impact. Correct me if I’m wrong, but does the track design not look like a horrible death waiting to happen?

MORE: From this story, it is clear that people in the sport thought the track was pushing it. It has been described as “an elevator shaft with ice.” That is, even the highly-trained lunatics who do this for kicks were wary of it. On top of which:

“Please, let there be no accidents there because that could kill the sport,” said Andy Schmid, the performance director of British Skeleton, who condemns as irresponsible the Canadian authorities’ decision to limit practice time for overseas competitors to just 40 training runs compared with the 300-plus runs set aside for Canadian athletes.

“People have the argument that it’s just home advantage and that’s normal for an Olympic host country, but it’s different for sports involving high speed. Can you imagine in Formula One nobody being allowed on a track because somebody has home advantage?”

Tags: Luge

More by Andrew Coyne

Mike

they should move this event to Calgary Olympic Park before somebody else dies.
Joseph

This is disgusting, the Canadian teams restricted the access of other teams to these venues for practicing so they could have an advantage. I hope they cancel this event.

tobyornottoby

But it happened on a practice run. Wouldn't it stand to reason that more access would lead to more chance of injury?

Mike T.

That could be a possibility. It could also be that normal practice is to have many many more practice runs, but with so few the practitioners felt they had to start off at top speed rather than "waste" runs getting comfortable at the beginning.

Lord Kitchener's Own

There may well be some validity to this criticism, but I'd also point out as I have below that this track has been in operation for two years worth of World Cup events, so it's not as though they started using the track for the first time this week.
Bill

Don't be stupid… every host nation limits access to visiting competitors.
Peter

This happens at all Olympics. Get a grip.

Trillium

Apparently there have been several crashes, with a Romanian woman airlifted from the site this last week.

They're doing a 270-degree turn at 140 kms.

BGizzle

Turning radius?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

From the NYTimes report: According to the speed clock on the broadcast, he was going 143.3 kph — 88 mph — and was propelled over the track wall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/sports/olympics…

Lord Kitchener's Own

The track is notorious for being the fastest anywhere. The record is over 153 kph. I think thye had best postpone the event and have a thorough investigation. On the one hand, it seems crazy how dangerous the track is, but on the other hand, they've been racing on it for international competitions for two years.

Adam

Much like any other sport, safety protocols are not usually made mandatory until it is too late; quit acting like they did it on purpose, it was a freak accident.

PS. The Calgary track is slow and boring.

Amateur Hour

Negligence is the opposite of diligence, Adam. It doesn't mean someone did it "on purpose". It means someone should have foreseen the consequences, which is also an appropriate question to raise given the history of injuries and deaths in bobsleigh, luge and skeleton directly related to equipment and track design. I vaguely recall, years ago, a track ban on skeleton due to a stone bridge crossing the course … against which someone crashed. Also, this track has already proven controversial. As such, Coyne's question in the lede here is apt … "does the track design not look like a horrible death waiting to happen?"

Jamie

How totally shameful that the Toronto Sun would carry crash photos of this event. I think they should respect the athlete and his family’s dignity in this terrible time. I was once hit by a cyclist in downtown Toronto and went flying headfirst into the road. Luckily for me my shoulder broke my fall a little but I was shocked at the extent of the teeth-rattling impact from only a bike accident. These lugers are going at MUCH higher speeds and I cannot fathom how the organizers wouldn’t have anticipated that they could hurtle right off their sled and into one of those steel beams. I don’t think this poor guy stood a chance. So very tragic.

Lord Kitchener's Own

With the possible exception of one photo, I'm not sure the Sun necessarily deserves to be singled out for their photo coverage of the crash given that pretty much every major news site (CTV, the G&M and CNN for example) have VIDEO of the crash streaming on their sites.

Jamie

The Toronto Sun included two pretty graphic pictures of the seriously injured athlete after the crash i.e., you can partially see his face while medics are working on him. The other media outlets show the video and stills from afar but that’s nowhere near as intrusive, that’s the point I was making. They’re being singled out for good reason- seems like they sought to do that themselves, tastelessly.
Lord Kitchener's Own

I certainly saw at least one of the pics you refer to, and I do agree that publishing it was in poor taste, to say the least.

Lord Kitchener's Own

The track clearly needs to be adjusted, and pronto.

It's important to point out however that this track has been in use for two years in World Cup events, so it's not as though it just got thrown together at the last minute and hasn't been used in competition before. How there's an unpadded steel ANYTHING anywhere NEAR the track is a mystery that had better be solved pdq though.

Condolences to this man's family.

http://intensedebate.com/people/andrewcoyne Andrew Coyne

Not, I should say, that merely putting padding on the pillars would have saved him, going the speed he was.

COMMONSENSE

Excuse me Andrew, but if a human body splayed hit those pillars at half the speed head first…I fear the end result maybe as tragic. STEEL PILLARS…the solution? All they had to day was run horizontal panelling along those pillars to keep anybody flying in between the pillars. He would of bounced off and landed back on the track.

http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

Exactly! Why is that entire railing not topped with plexiglass panels? When you turn a human a body into a projectile you need to think really hard about what can go wrong. This is horrific.

Lord Kitchener's Own

Good point, and also, to play Devil's advocate (this needs to be thoroughly investigated I think, so I hope my comments don't come off as simply those of an apologist for organizers or the sport's federation, which I most certainly am not) it's worth remembering that hindsight is 20/20. In retrospect, those posts do seem ridiculous, but it's at least possible for me to imagine that a designer could deem the likelihood of an athlete being thrown into the air to such a height to be too improbable as to be considered a safety flaw, or possibly even that such a possibility did not even occur to the designer, or to those in the sport's governing body (and VANOC?) who subsequently approved the track for international competition.

commonsense

Look, whomever designed that run? Has been doing it for years. decades. Whomever designed that track understands better than most the effect gravity will have on a luger and the possibilities. The designers could probably estimate the top speeds that can be reached. So 140 K's per hour…the next question? What happens if the luger loses control? A body at 140 ks an hour. If designers and the builders of such tracks don't prepare for such an inevitability? Well, in my books, they are responsible…due diligence. I bet you or I could walk down that track and wouldn't ask…what the hell are those steel pillars doing there and why aren't they blocked off?
Atomic Walrus

It doesn't matter what sort of covering you put over the pillars – if you hit something when you're going 140 km/h, you're probably going to be killed. Even if the walls were some sort of resilient material, a person could easily bounce off the wall and smack into the track again. The nearest analogy to this is getting thrown from a moving car. There's a reason that cars are equipped with seatbelts, airbags, and designed with crumple zones.

http://intensedebate.com/people/SirJohn_Eh SirJohn_Eh

Not a freak accident – no matter the skill level of the athlete. Its inexcusable, and the event will be severly affected by this even if they pad those beams, create a guard to keep fallen riders from exiting track, whatever. Is this kind of carnage (not even the death) during training runs a common occurrence in Winter Olympics for luge? I doubt it, and the organisers should have been proactive – not crossing their fingers each time an athlete started a run.
Lord Kitchener's Own

It's not an invalid point, but it's not as though they just started doing runs on this track yesterday. It's been used in World Cup events for two years, so it's not just VANOC that has questions to answer, and I dare say that the sport's governing body is as culpable, if not more, if this isn't just a freak accident.

If this isn't a freak occurrence and the track is as dangerous as it seems, it never should have been approved by the sport's governing body, and they shouldn't have been using it for international competitions all this time.
Anon001

I'm also concerned about these outdoor skiing and aerials events. With the kind of soggy weather they're having, they've had to cancel training runs. Just hope nothing bad happens.
Dot

I seem to recall one of Canada's premier luge/skeleton female athletes being injured somewhere (was it this track?) and in an interview claiming she was unable to get herself mentally prepared to start (once recovered) unless she was positioned a good portion down the track, I presume to limit speed. I could be mistaken.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

Geez…

They need movable fencing (like in downhill skiing), plexi-glass, removing the pillars, anything that he could either bounce off or absorb the impact! This could have been avoided. Ensuring the person cannot leave the track would help, or ensuring that if he does he won't hit a steel pillar or brick wall.

hosertohoosier

Would plexi-glass help at the speeds these folks are going, or would they shatter the plexiglass, and add cuts to an impact injury? I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the builders of the track till we know better (obviously they need to investigate the track, and the probably should move the venue). However you spin it, this was an utter tragedy for the athlete, and a bad day for Canada.

kcm

They could have usd lexan…it's what they use in deep sea fishing boats…not shatter proof, but way better than plexi.

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

or that material that you can see along the wall earlier (which well could be lexan over wood). dude would be busted up but wold be alive i suspect.

dave

To address this, you need to go back to your high school physics and remember the rules of momentum. The vast majority of the energy generated by moving at 144 KPH is headed downhill and this is what you need to provide means to dissipate safely. This is why shields to his left or right (ie – not in the direct flow of travel and therefore only accepting the left-right forces created by the wall bouncing him from the sled) are able to more safely take his impact and redirect him down the course – allowing his continued forward skidding to dissipate that energy far more safely than what happened which was all of it being expended head on into a steel beam in a split second.

Which, to be blunt, is very, very, bad at that velocity regardless of how much padding you put there.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Skinny_Dipper Skinny Dipper

It's Princess Di.
ADD

As former "highly-trained lunatic" as Mr. Coyne puts it, you know when you let go from the start handles that there are risks; but you don't think this could be the price you pay. My sympathies to his family and I again apolgize to my own mother for putting her through my particpation in the sport.
http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

and in the presser faced with tough question on the track, Rogge absurdly said the time for concerns over luge track is later, that this is time for mourning. does someone else have to die. wtf?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

I think he meant that now, right now, is only the time for mourning. They had already cancelled the rest of the training, and had announced an investigation would be held. We will focus on the track tomorrow, today we can only focus on the end of a young man's life. At least that's how I took it.

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

i guess Jenn. but i am not convinced that mourning the loss of this young athletes precludes answering serious questions about safety or at least resolutely affirming not another individual will descend the track before the investigation is completed. If anything i think, as head of the IOC he owes that kind of response to Kumaritashvili and his family as well as Kumaritashvili's peers.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Oh, I'm not either. Certainly the serious, wtf are metal poles doing there, how was this track approved by everyone involved, questions need to be answered before anyone else goes down that track. No, I mean really the fixing it needs to be done before anyone else goes down that track. I'm just suggesting that Rogge was suggesting we not lose sight of the person, the individual whose life was cut short, in our rush to lay blame, fix the event, all the other stuff.

burlivespipe

IOC is not use to answering difficult questions. I doubt they would have given an answer if it was a less tragic moment; it's their ball and they play it like they want to.

Mike T.

I think now is the time for one of Andrew Coyne's safety-restrictions are for the weak, why-should-I-have-to-wear-a-helmet articles.

And mail it to the family, too.

http://intensedebate.com/people/andrewcoyne Andrew Coyne

I take your point. Because, when you think about it, riding your bike to the corner store and careening down a hill feet first at 140 km/hr round 270-degree corners ringed by sharp-edged steel girders are exactly alike.
http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

Mike what is the point of trying to smear Coyne? There are times when I have major disagreements on substance and approach with Coyne, but what does this post honour the dead athlete, add understanding to the situation or strike a path to improving the problem?

Coyne can clearly fend for himself, but this kinda thing seems to be increasingly common here and also tiring.

Mike T.

I think it's always worthwhile to keep in mind that strict application of ideology often fails when met with practical reality.

http://intensedebate.com/people/RunningGag RunningGag

As usual, folks misunderstand the difference between advocating that people utilize the safety equipment available to them, and advocating that people be forced, by government, to utilize the safety equipment that the government deems necessary.

There is a difference.

Matt

Design is poor! Bottom Line. They should never have had them large exposed structure steel columns in that area or an area. This should have never been design and build that way. Poor engineering, I can think of 10 ways to improve this and that's not thinking to hard.
kcm

It's precisely because they aren't alike that the highest possible standards should apply in the case of the luger.
http://intensedebate.com/people/andrewcoyne Andrew Coyne

Yes so mark me down as a supporter of helmets for lugers. Though it didn't seem to do him much good, did it?

kcm

Sadly no, it didn't.

Patchouli

Tragedy before the Games even get started. Awful stuff; no need for video or photos of such a sad event.

Never understood luge in the first place; just seems like a very risky dangerous kind of activity, not so much a sport.

hosertohoosier

Obviously it is dangerous, but the athleticism required to control yourself at those kinds of speeds has to be pretty intense. Perhaps they need to design tracks with a maximum possible speed in mind. I mean, just think, if the speeds were too much for a highly trained athlete, imagine how many less experienced people would die if say, that track were made open to people that wanted to train.

dave

Jeff Blair wrote an article a week ago warning about the track noting that the Russians have been apparently told that their run for the 2014 Olympics should not exceed 135 KPH. In comparison, the record speed at Whistler from cup events in the past is 153 KPH which is the fastest recorded speed in history.

That's a pretty steep step backwards going forward if true.

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

1) then why didn't you say that in the context of safety concerns instead of drawing some false equivalence about serious issues.

2) how does And mail it to the family, too. help make that point?

Mike T.

Oh »I fully expected people to point out details which they would claim make the situation totally different, and I certainly wasn`t leet down in that dept. But at its heart, the Coyne angle tends to be `why do we have rules which prevent rare but dangerous injury, rather than just letting people ski, or make luge courses, as they see fit`:

This is why.

FVerhoeven

Mike T, valid point.
http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

only if you assume that Coyne doesn't have appreciation for an obvious continuum of risk and likely potential outcomes.

nonetheless i can totally see why we should send the articles to the kid's family now.

NOTAFANOFCONGAMES

VANOC wants records broken. It is the dirty secret of any Olympic organizers. It wishes to do go down in the history books for breaking records. So it designs a death run for a luge. A number of Lugers have already been injured in practice runs. An American Luger was airlifted out. Veteran coaches and team managers have had serious concerns about this run and its reckless design. Furthermore Andrew, you are absolutely right. Why the hell are steel pillars encroaching the track, or basically create a wall out of the last curve where the speed is the highest and the "sling shot" effect is tremendous. Without padding or protection? 6 billion dollars and this? Now, we will hear the pundits and the CTV cheerleading squad is already pinning the blame on the young man who lost his life…saying he was inexperienced..that he was an "Olympic Tourist"…the spin will now try and downplay this man's death as purely his own fault. But one aspect of this cannot be escaped. It is the first death ever in the Olympics…unprecedented. Of course VANOC will continue to spin their "Don't worry be happy." mantra.

Lord Kitchener's Own

Actually, not that this lessen the tragedy at all, but I believe this is actually the fifth death at the Olympics (Summer and Winter combined, and not including 1972) and it's actually the third to occur at the Winter Olympics during training runs (the other two both being in 1964, one in luge, and the other in skiing).

kgv

Amen Katherine.
Dave

Does the track design not look like a horrible death waiting to happen?

Yeah, that's pretty much what it looks like, and if this was in the states, the judge would agree.
http://theplaceofbiff.blogspot.com biff

While the media is fully on the after-the-fact, "it was so obvious all along" acusatorial, moral preeening, band wagon,

how about as holding the role of purveyors of important information,

you all could of….kinda spoke up about it…an article or two…when it was oh so obvious.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled tut tutting from the 20/20 hindsight aided high ground.

dave

Jeff Blair of the Globe and Mail wrote an article last weekend about athletes concerns with the track – including one telling him that his first opinion of the track when it opened was that someone was going to die there.

http://theplaceofbiff.blogspot.com biff

BTW,

I for one am shocked our society hasn't be rendered accident free, in all cirumstances,

even with respect to dangerous high velocity sports where the participants voluntarily go faster than speeding vehicles.

Now, let us all put forth our collective yawns towards all the people who died in car accidents in this country, in the time this post has been open.

I appreciate chicken littling is in vogue these days, but lets get a tad of perspective, shall we?

wellwell

Shut up, Biff. Have you no decency, at long last?

http://theplaceofbiff.blogspot.com biff

why no post here about the grandmother who killed her two sweet beauiful young grandkids. Innocent, sweet, gasping for breath and wondering why their loved one would kill them in thier last precious moments of life?

The tragedy abounds and I can hardly read that story without it bringing a tear to my eye.

But, you know, we can't attack the "system" with it. We can't use it to tut, tut, or preen, so…..yawn.

My commentary is not about the tragic death of the luger, but of the commentariate. That you melodramatically wrap yourself in the protection of the tragedy in order to place me on the moral low ground,

kind of makes my point.

We seem to have a number of Rahm Immanuels here, not wanting to let a "good tragedy go to waste."