Adam Hunt
Senior Reporter / Columnist
Who can we blame for the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili? The brave Georgian died in practice for the men’s luge shortly before the start of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver just under two weeks ago. He was 21. He hit a pole after flying off the track. As a result, the Games began in a particularly gloomy fashion.
This is not supposed to happen. The daredevil competitors are supposed to cheat death. But, instead, death has cheated Kumaritashvili and it has cheated us. Naturally, we want someone to blame.
The organizers have been very quick to blame Kumaritashvili. He “did not compensate properly” going into Turn 16 they claimed in a press conference shortly after the indicent. True, Kumaritashvili was not among the world’s elite. But he was no amateur; he took part in five World Cup races this season. He knew what he was doing. Perhaps he just got it wrong.
The next option is to blame the Canadians. This is a very tempting option. Their highly unpleasant “Own The Podium 2010” initiative, in which they seek to exploit home advantage to the last nanosecond, has alienated the world they are supposed to play host to.
Home athletes always have an advantage: getting brash and devious about it is neither necessary nor appropriate.
But Kumaritashvili did not die because he had been deprived of practice or from any other semi-legitimate foul-play. He died because he was practicing, not because he wasn’t. We can’t blame the home country.
The third option is to blame the track. An Olympic event is different to the routine competitions in any sport: you not only have the elite at their very best and most competitive, you also have less experienced and underfinanced competitors from nations a good way from the sporting power centers.
They are there for the glory of doing their best. You need, then, an event that tests the top guns while getting the rest through unscathed. And in sports as potentially dangerous as the luge, this is a difficult task.
The question, then, is whether or not an Olympic luge track should try to create safer landings for an error-stricken luger, as motor racing tracks have their gravel pits for cars that go out of control.
That’s one for the lugers and for all the dangerous sports to consider more fully after Kumaritashvili’s death.
But it’s not the moment to start casting blame on the people for this. If we blame anything, we must blame the human spirit. Dangerous sports are not supposed to be a soft option. They are enthralling because of that element of danger.
There are two duties here: the organizers must do all they can to make it safe and the contestants must do all they can to avoid stupidity. That is the contract of the danger sports. It’s called responsibility, and it’s a two-way street.
Ultimately, but not coldheartedly, we have to accept what we all know very well: that accidents will happen. We go into such sports knowing they are dangerous. Everyone collects bruises and worse, some get injured and, alas, sometimes somebody is killed. It behooves everyone to do everything possible to avoid this; unfortunately, deaths are inevitable.
The only way to avoid death in sport altogether is to ban all dangerous sports. But the human spirit won’t accept that. All who are involved say the same thing: we don’t do dangerous sports for the love of death. It’s the love of life that drives us.
That must be what Kumaritashvili is remembered for.
