- The charter of the International Olympic Committee states
that one of the Committee's primary objectives is to "encourage and
support the promotion of ethics in sports." The circumstances surrounding
the death of Georgian luge slider Nodar Kumaritashvili expose the charter
as an absolute lie. On the cusp of last week's opening ceremonies, Kumaritashvili
died practicing on a track many believed to be extremely dangerous.
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- Shortly before his death, the 21-year-old Kumaritashvili
spoke to his father, David, who said to the AP, "He told me: 'Dad,
I really fear that curve.' I'm a former athlete myself, and I told him:
'You just take a slower start.' But he responded: 'Dad, what kind of thing
you are teaching me? I have come to the Olympics to " try to win.'...
He told me: 'I will either win or die.'
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- Kumaritashvili's fear had been shared by other luge sliders
since the day the <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/sports/olympics/14track.html?ref=olympics>track
opened in 2008 and course designers said that it was "faster, steeper
and more intense than any track in history." United States luge athlete
Mark Grimmette said the very day before Kumaritashvili's death, "I
think we're probably getting close, too close, to the edge." Bob Storey,
president of the International Federation of Bobsleigh and Tobogganing,
said of the track's design: "That was not an engineering decision.
That was a commercial decision."
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- Hannah Campbell-Pegg of Australia also commented, "To
what extent are we just little lemmings that they throw down this track
and we're crash-test dummies?" Even Armin Zoeeggeler of Italy, the
world's top luger, crashed earlier in the day.
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- The more luge sliders complained about impending peril,
the less they were heard.
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- The IOC and the International Luge Federation (FIL) should
right now be begging for forgiveness, demanding a thorough investigation,
and already starting to make restitution to Kumaritashvili's family. They
should count themselves as lucky that they won't be nabbed for involuntary
manslaughter. Instead, they have chosen a path of ugly arrogance that recalls
the imperious former IOC President Avery Brundage at his absolute worst.
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- Even for people who oversee winter sports, this is very
cold-blooded.
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- VANOC (the IOC's host body) and FIL issued a response
with a tone of barely concealed annoyance that Kumaritashvili had to selfishly
go and die. Taking a mere ten hours to "investigate" how Kumaritashvili
died, they blamed him for his own death on Curve 16, writing, "There
was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track."
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- The subtext was, "Time to move on. Get back to work
and on that track."
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- The incredibly callous and patently suspect "official
finding" is rooted in the true mission of the IOC: maxing out television
revenue. The highly profitable niche of extreme winter sports has put pressure
on the Winter Games to supply a product with ever more speed and spectacle.
The result is the first luger to die on the track in thirty-four years.
To slow down the games out of respect for the dead, or even to investigate
how so many concerns could be ignored, would be to slow a carnival that
has generated 26.4 million average viewers for the first five nights of
NBC's pretaped television primetime broadcast. (These numbers are 22 percent
higher than the 2006 games in Torino.) Their argument is that they're not
at fault because they're the IOC; therefore, they can't be at fault.
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- But the IOC's actions after the blood was mopped off
the ice show that they know very well knew where to place blame. After
insisting that their oh-so-extensive ten-hour investigation found the track
to be safe, they had workers put up a high wooden wall just past the curve
where Kumaritashvili died. They also put padding on the exposed metal beams
before the finish line and they changed the men's starting point, which
will slow their speed on the track. After questioned on these hurried moves,
they said that it was all done out of concern for the emotional state of
Kumaritashvili's teammates and competitors, a feint toward sympathy that
even the New York Times called "bogus."
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- To further make sure that we forget that the 2010 Vancouver
Olympics started with death, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, has handed
down a directive that the graphic video of Kumaritashvili's death is not
to be shown on any of NBC's news programming without his permission. In
addition, this policy has apparently been adopted by NBC Sports. Out of
sight, out of mind. As for Kumaritashvili, his body has already been shipped
back to his native Georgia. His family is grieving, his mother throwing
herself on his coffin as it traveled the streets toward his home.
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- Now the sports pages are filled with stories about Lindsay
Vonn, Shani Davis, and Bode Miller. (Nodar who?) But while the games go
on, we should never forget. After all, if this is how the IOC treats its
athletes, heaven help the rest of us. As the games get underway in London
in 2012 or Russia 2014, remember that there is blood on the tracks.
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- Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming "Bad
Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love" (Scribner) Receive
his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at
edgeofsports@gmail.com.
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