Canadian luge officials, on the defensive since the death of a Georgian slider, are fighting back.
Chris Donan, spokesman of the Canadian Luge Association, says the real issue is the lax qualifying standards that allow inexperienced athletes from small countries to make it to the Olympics. Nineteen-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed February 12th. during a training run down the luge track.
Werner Hoeger, a Venezuela luge team member, crashed during a training run on the same track in November, suffering a concussion and losing consciousness. Afterwards he filed a formal complaint alleging the track was dangerous.
But according to John Gibson, a spokesman for VANOC, which organized the Games, Hoeger was primarily concerned about getting more time to train on the luge track leading up to the Olympics. Gibson says the luge federation denied his request because it would have given Hoeger training time not afforded to the other athletes.
Hoeger is 56-years old and had placed 40th and 32nd respectively in the two previous Winter Olympics. According to VANOC he was crashing repeatedly during his training in November, even when taking off from the women’s start line. Canadian luge officials have been criticized for not permitting competing teams more time to practice on their track, which was completed in 2007. Some have even suggested that the country’s effort to “own the podium-” a $113 million effort at extra training to look good on Canada’s home soil- led officials to deny other athletes critical training time.
VANOC and Canadian luge officials say they have provided as much or more access to their luge run as any previous host country. They welcomed other luge teams in November 2008, and February and November of last year for a week at a time.
Over that span there were 5,588 practice runs. Some countries chose not to send their sliders. Prior to these Olympic Games, the luge federation only required a host country to provide one week of practice time to other nations.
Gibson says the Olympic luge track is actually safer than the average track around the world. Of the 30,477 runs, there have been 340 crashes (1.1%). A typical track sees crashes at a 2-3 percent rate.
When asked why they made several changes to the luge track after the Georgian’s death, Gibson says it was the I.O.C.’s decision to help lugers from a “psychological standpoint”.
The I.O.C. raised the fence where Kumaritashvili left the track, changed the ice profile and had male competitors start from the women’s starting line.