Death and Danger Face Winter Olympic Athletes

According to the Associated Press, there have been three deaths in addition to the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili who died practicing for the 2010 Winter Olympic luger event. The other deaths the press STATS show were in 1964 with the death of Jugar Kazimierz, in 1988 the death of team doctor, Jorg Oberhammer, and in 1992 with the death of Nicholas Bochatay. (Associated Press, http://sports.yahoo.com) The risks and physicality of many sports that the Winter Game athletes compete in do not seem to bother them. Many of the sports require much impact with mountain rocks, snow, dodging trees on slopes; and skiing tricks that many athletes rush with adrenaline to gain the ultimate achievement of through die hard practice; and for what in order to gain glory, prestige, and money. I think many of the sports, especially the speed skiing and the luge, are too intense and too dangerous. The will of these athletes is indescribable when you watch them on the tube, and they act as if they are invincible.

However, because of the deaths that have shrouded the Winter Olympic games; there should be a ban and ending to these sports. For one to want to participate in a sport where they are facing death in a forcible way is beyond my understanding; and the zealous of the continuing of the Winter Olympics without a thought about the death of one of its athletes is crazy. Why do we continue not to see that death is permanent, and why would you want to put yourself in dangerous feats time and time again, that can you leave you paralyzed, incapacitated, or in a comatose state?

Athletes brave danger, and the Winter Olympics is no exception. The games makes us excited when we see the skier's downhill somersault leaping into the air right before our eyes, but we do not see him putting his life into his own hands with one wrong move. The risks and dangers of the Winter Olympics have not given us a wake-up call into the brutality of our needs for excitement. Why do we constantly seek adventure in facing death, destruction, and danger? I guess the Winter Olympics has not taught us anything in changing our way of entertainment, and it has not made us say "This sport is not worth my painful demise, or worth my family's grief, I am not going to put myself in harm's way." Instead it has made us dive head on into the free fall of gravity's pull, letting death smash us face to face with stone ground.

Source:

"Georgian luger 4^th-ever Winter Olympian to die" STATS Associated Press.http://sports.yahoo.com//olympics/news 12 February 2010.