2010 Winter Olympics: Luge death puts spotlight on risks of winter glory

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — At the Two Parrots diner here Saturday, the televisions were all tuned to the 2010 Winter Olympics. A patron glanced up from his breakfast in time to see a skier in a head-over-heels crash.

He reacted in alarm: "Not another!" A customer at another table calmed him. "It's just a commercial," she said.

Georgian luger Norad Kumaritashvili's death during a practice run Friday has the Canadian hosts of the Winter Olympics on edge, and has put a spotlight on the dangers inherent to many Olympic sports in which athletes have never gone faster, jumped higher or pushed the laws of physics more.

The question now: In their pursuit of the Olympic motto of "swifter, higher, stronger," are winter-sports athletes, coaches and those who build competition venues crossing the lines of common sense and safety?

"This sort of a tragedy will obviously make everybody consider and scrub a little harder in terms of making sure we're doing the right things on behalf of the athletes," says Alan Ashley, the U.S. Olympic Committee's winter sports team leader and managing director of sport performance.

Kumaritashvili's death — which led officials to reduce the speeds in the men's luge by starting the racers lower on the track — was the latest and most tragic incident in recent months to underline the risks to athletes here. From short-track speedskater J.R. Celski gashing his leg in a crash at the U.S. Olympic trials to several Alpine skiers injuring themselves on icy slopes and U.S. snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffering a serious brain injury on the halfpipe during a December practice, this season has brought a series of reminders of the perilous nature of many ratings-grabbing winter events.

"We know in the back of our minds that injury is possible," says Celski, who rebounded from his career-threatening injury to win a bronze medal Saturday in the 1,500-meter race. "But injury is possible with anything you do in life, so I guess you just have to be confident in what you do."

His medal-winning effort proved his confidence is back, but Celski is skating now with a protective Kevlar bodysuit under his skin suit. He didn't have the bodysuit on during the U.S. Olympic trials because it slows him by a fraction of a second. In the 1,500-meter final Saturday, he placed third — and fellow American Apolo Ohno finished second — only after a pair of South Korean skaters vying for second and third wiped each other out and crashed into the ice rink's padded wall.