Nodar Kumaritashvili Luge Death Crash Looks for Someone to Blame

The death of the young Republic of Georgia luger Nodar Kumaritashvili has everybody in Vancouver pointing fingers, attempting to establish blame for Friday's luge crash. Some blamed the inexperience of the 21-year-old luge driver. Some blamed the luge track, admittedly one of the world's fastest. Others blamed the IOC for not making the track safer. All of the finger-pointing, of course, led to hours of ducking, deflecting, and obfuscating.

An investigation by the International Luge Federation (FIL) resulted in the announcement that the track was safe and that Nodar Kumaritashvili's death was not caused by any imperfections or "deficiencies" in the luge track itself.

The video of the event, which has been the focus of a controversy all its own, showed the 21-year-old luger coming into Curve 16, known as the Thunderbird, and suddenly jettisoning from his sled. His body subsequently hit an unpadded steel girder and his limp form was quickly medevaced to a nearby medical facility where he was pronounced dead.

The FIL released a statement, noting that Nodar Kumaritashvili had miscalculated coming out of the next-to-last curve. "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."

Some took the statement to mean that Nodar Kumaritashvili died as a result of his youth and inexperience. But Kumaritashvili was ranked 44th in the world and was the son of a world-class luger. He had been training at the luge from a young age.

So if it wasn't imperfections in the track and Nodar Kumaritashvili wasn't a totally inexperienced luger on his first slide on a luge track. Could it have been that the track itself was unsafe in its overall construction? CNN noted that the world's fastest luge time was recorded in 2009 at the Whistler Sliding Center and that there had been talk of the dangerousness of the speeds attained on the track. Speeds at the Vancouver track were expected to average well of 10 mph over any other luge track in the world. Sports Illustrated's David Epstein, who is covering the Olympics, said that Whistler was the fastest in the world, "and not by a little."

At least 12 luge sliders wrecked earlier in the week, according to the Associated Press. But nobody could recall anyone ever going over the wall as Kumaritashvili did.

German coach and three-time world champion Georg Hackl stated before the Georgian's fatal luge crash that he felt that the track was safe, saying he did not believe it was "any more dangerous than anywhere else."

Still, after the fatal crash, a wooden barrier was erected, heightening the wall at Curve 16.

But the luge is a dangerous sport by nature, as are several Winter Olympics sports. And when there exists an unprotected body hurtling down a u-shaped ice chute at 85-90 mph, the smallest track imperfection, driver miscalculation, and/or design deficiency could result in a horrible accident, even death. There could have existed a confluence of circumstances that resulted in the death of young Nodar Kumaritashvili, not just one single blameworthy factor.

Horrible enough that the young man was killed in the luge crash, but it seems even worse the controversies and castings of blame that have risen subsequent to it.

Nodar Kumaritashvili's untimely death was the second luge death in Olympics history. The first death occurred in 1964.

The last death to occur at an Olympics event occurred in 1992, when a Swiss skier crashed into a snow clearing machine. According to NBC, the Swiss skier had been training as well.

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Sources:

CNN.com
NBC Television
Associated Press