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Sports Injury Prevention Failure

All the warning signs were there: a $110-million luge track that turned out to be faster than the designer planned. There were several incidents prior to the Olympics in February 2010 that suggested that the track was not safe. A Hungarian slider was knocked unconscious the day before the fatal accident, while traveling at speeds in excess of 90 mph. Two days prior to the tragedy, a Swiss bobsled medal favorite withdrew from competition after sustaining a concussion and other injuries on a training run. Metal beams within 5 feet of the 98-mph track were not only exposed but not padded. Finally, a 21-year-old luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, told his father that he feared the track. 
 
Tragedy struck on Friday, February 12, 2010, just 7 hours before the official start of the Olympic Games at a training run at Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, British Columbia. The young luger was on the final curve, number 16, called Thunderbird, when his sled climbed the wall, catapulting him off the track and into a steel beam. Emergency crews were at his side almost immediately, but anyone who witnessed the crash realized what the outcome would be. Protective equipment, including the best-made helmets, cannot protect human beings at those speeds when crashing into immovable objects such as steel beams. 
 
The Olympic Games opened as planned that fateful day on a very somber note. The remaining Georgian athletes wore black armbands at the Opening Ceremony and were greeted by a standing ovation in memory of their lost teammate and fellow Olympian. Olympic officials were visibly shaken as the second-guessing began. Luge officials met late into that night to determine if competition could begin the next day. Multiple factors were discussed, including the weather at Whistler Mountain, which was warm and rainy. Although rain can make ice dangerously slick, the warm weather should have softened and slowed the course. 
 
Three years before the Olympic track was built at Whistler, the organizers of the games were told that the track would send racers through the course at record speeds, prompting 2 modifications of the course. After the Whistler course was completed in 2007, promotional materials called it “violent and rough . . . and not for the faint of heart.” (Wall Street Journal, Saturday, February 12, 2010). The Whistler Sliding Center course featured 20° slopes, almost 500 feet of vertical drop over its 1500-yard length, and is the steepest of the world’s 15 international sliding venues. 
 
The chief executive of the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation emphasized the inherent dangers of the sport, saying that pushing for higher speeds is the nature of the luge. The International Luge Federation spokesman, Wolfgang Harder, called for safety changes to the track after the World Cup Competition in February 2009. Yet, after the fatal accident, the official word was that the young luger had failed to control his sled. 
 
In the aftermath, IOC chief Jacques Rogge said that “everyone was responsible” for the young luger’s death (Wall Street Journal, Thursday, February 26, 2010) and that the “IOC had a moral but not legal responsibility for the death.” Fatal accidents are not uncommon in the winter sports venue. Four occurred between 1964 and 1992; only one of those was from the luge. Three groups continue to investigate the fatal accident: the coroner, the Canadian police, and the Bobsled Federation. What other factors will be uncovered is not yet known, but this we do know: the luger was traveling very fast and the track had some dangerous features. 
 
The toughest luge run of the Olympic Games may have come from the first luger to go through the course after the accident. Tony Benshoof, a top US medal hopeful, was the slider. He cruised through a modified track without incident, no doubt with mixed thoughts and a heavy heart. Benshoof navigated a shortened course, which began at the women’s start. Three turns were eliminated to slow down the racers; the ice on the track was modified to prevent lugers from climbing the wall; 12-foot-high wooden barriers were erected around curves; and metal beams were padded. 
 
Before the Olympic Games in Vancouver ended, IOC president Jacques Rogge wrote a letter to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games organizers in Sochi, Russia, asking them to put “safety first” (Wall Street Journal, Friday, February 26, 2010) Hopefully, that will be the case. 
 
In the end, it is hard not to ask why this tragedy had to happen. All the warning signs appeared to be there: the speed, the warnings, the injuries. It may be our own fascination with speed seen in so many other venues that convinces athletes, coaches, designers, and organizers to venture into dangerous territory. Let’s all hope that we can learn from this unfortunate tragedy.