WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT A slew of deaths haunt the historic games with the most dangerous sports seeming to be the luge and downhill skiing with athletes in both categories sustaining serious injuries after reaching heady speeds
Horrifyingly, some of the worst Winter Olympics deaths were watched by thousands, with one 21-year-old’s tragic death even caught on camera.
With a sparkling career ahead of him, Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian Luger arrived at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 hoping to win Gold.
However, his life was cut short in a violent moment after he crashed into a metal pole in his final training run on the day of the opening ceremony.
Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said the death “clearly casts a shadow over these games.” The committee met to decide how to proceed regarding events at the sliding centre.
Irakly Japaridze, the head of the Georgian Olympic delegation, said: “We are all in deep shock, we don’t know what to do. We don’t know whether to take part in the opening ceremony or even the Olympic Games themselves.”
The local organising committee released a statement saying that an investigation was under way to “ensure a safe field of play.”
Adam Rosen, a British luger who dislocated his hip on the course in the preceding October said: “You have to be very exact on certain parts of the track otherwise they could be disastrous.”
British skeleton’s performance director, Andi Schmid, said: “We need to be careful so that these sports stay great action sports and don’t become dangerous killer sports.”
With speeds that used to reach over 90 mph, the luge is one of the most dangerous sports at the Olympic Games, according to NBC New York.
Following Kumaritashvil’s untimely death, The International Luge Federation conducted an investigation.
The conclusion was human error was the cause of the deadly training run crash and it led to major changes in the construction of the luge course.
Now the beams are padded and the walls are higher supposedly limiting speeds to 87 miles per hour.
In another horror accident, a 27-year-old Swiss speed skier died in a training crash involving a snow machine in 1992.
In Albertville Bochatay was warming up his downhill skiing downhill while on his way to the competition area, when he hit a snow-grooming machine
Hugo Steinegger, a spokesman for the Olympic organizing committee, said that Bochatay had been skiing on a public slope adjacent to the speed ski run.
Jorand said they jumped a small hill, flew into the air and Bochatay crashed into the machine and Olympian sadly died on impact.
Jean-Albert Corrand, the local Olympic organizing committee, said the snowcat was moving, sounding a siren and flashing emergency lights, when the collision occurred.
Downhill skiing and the luge proved the most deadly overtime with two more athletes dying in each sector at the Innsbruck 1964 games.
Ross Milne, a 19-year-old Australian skier died of a head injury after he lost control and hit a tree during a downhill training run.
In another training incident Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypecki, a 58-year-old British luger died following a crash during training, just eight days before the opening ceremony.
The former Royal Air Force pilot was due to take part in the winter Olympics’ first ever luge competition.
He survived the crash, but had sustained many fractures, including his skull and pelvis, and he passed away while in surgery the day after the accident.
