Kumaritashvili: Olympic Fatality

A luger died in a warm-up run at the Olympics in Vancouver.

I feel strongly about how readily the video is available and the risk this track puts athletes at - but I want to post about the Olympic mindset and the inevitability of this incident.

I have never been drawn to to the Olympic sports, and whether I am rationalizing personal taste or have been jolted into stark clarity, I now know why.

Olympic events are predicated on precision during the most arduous of tasks. The sport that best fits my definition is the sport that I consider the quintessential Olympic event: the biathalon. Physical exertion (cross country skiing) combined with delicate precision (rifle shooting) symbolic of a survival skill (hunting).

Sadly, Olympic events have lost the symbolism of every-man survivalism and increasingly has become highly specialized brinkmanship. Downhill racing, speed skating, luging and many other sports require their athletes to push themselves to the fastest speed on the fastest tracks - and these athletes work their entire lives for a single race and that emotional investment overshadows any reservations they have.

Two sports I enjoy, basketball and baseball, have a certain level of danger that is virtually unavoidable in most aspects of life. But the sports are predicated on deliberate and repeatable skill in a team atmosphere - and the rules are intended to downplay risks. Even hockey and football, far more dangerous sports, are also fraught with challenges based on strategy and skill and the dangers of the sport legislated within limits.

Olympians have no union, crowds have no limits, and the current host city (and perhaps country) has an inferiority complex that combines to make for the most dangerous Olympics in recent history.

I always used to refer to baseball as merciless - a slightly imperfectly hit ball often leads to an out and a bobble in the field costs a defense an out. But merciless just doesn't fit because the outcomes are innocuous. Olympic sports are merciless. The hue and cry from the Olympics is that driver error led to the crash - but what kind of sport is our country rallying around where error leads to death?
Worse yet, is that no one was shocked by this outcome. Some have claimed it "an unimaginable sequence of events" but that is ignorance unworthy of rebuttal.

We wanted the greatest and most dangerous Olympics in history with the most efficient equipment and most committed athletes (even desperate athletes with Canada's rallying cry) and Kumaritashvli's death is just collateral damage.

I do not wish to denigrate the participants of the Games. They have worked very hard and deserve international praise far moreso than the oversized and overpaid professional athletes that I follow. But let's be honest, the risks these athletes put themselves at approach the classification of bloodsport. This death was not an rare tragedy, it was inevitable.