If you don't want to see the fatal luge accident of 21-year-old Republic of Georgia Olympic athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili during a training run in Vancouver last week, don't click here.
I watched it. Not for morbid entertainment, of course, but for education. As in, what went wrong?
As in, how could this happen?
Organizers ignored risks in making the track too fast? Driver error? I'm still not sure.
You?
It's horrible. Sad. But the reality of mortality is an inherent, understood part of risk-reward sports. The reason you fly 90mph on your butt down a moutain of ice is the tempted-fate-and-lived-to-tell-about-it aspect. I get that. It's the same reason I've been bungee jumping and sky diving and plan to someday summit a mountain or two and perform a BASE jump.
To some it's punching it through the intersection on yellow, or cheating on your wife with her sister, or putting $100 on a single roulette spin.
The thrill of it, ya know?
But in sports, danger - sometimes ultimate - is always an oops away, sometimes in the form of a metal pole.
