On Nodar Kumaritashvili's Death: It's A Different Kind Of Risk Management

Luge involves speed, and by definition is dangerous. Going ninety miles an hour is only considered safe in NASCAR, and doing it on a sled on ice with only a helmet between you and oblivion clearly implies a contract with fate: what I’m doing is a bit dangerous, and I accept this part of the bargain.

Lugers have died before on tracks, but never in the Olympics, and never in as shocking as fashion as Nodar Kumaritashvili did on Friday—an event American Tim Benshoof foresaw in this piece on the Whistler track last week.

Holcomb has since claimed that the course was designed backward, with tighter turns near the bottom where sleds max-out the speed. And American luger Tony Benshoof told NBC: “When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves.”

I’m torn as to what should be done. On one hand, no one wants to watch the Whistler track cripple the remaining field or worse (a scenario which is tragically real and possible). On the other, this is a chance lugers take every time they line up for a run, and it’s not like competitors haven’t run the Whistler track before without success.

Ideally this would be left to the lugers to decide whether continuing on would be the best tribute to their fallen comrade, but the IOC is extremely unlikely to let that happen. Meanwhile the Georgian Olympic team, according to ESPN, may be completely done at the Games altogether.