Luger filed warnings about Whistler track

[PurpleMaddy]

Report: Luger filed warnings about Whistler track

Vancouver, BC - A Venezuelan luger warned officials that the Olympic track where an athlete was killed last week was unsafe, according to a report in The New York Times.

The Times reported Thursday that Werner Hoeger, who competed at the Turin and Salt Lake City Olympics, raised safety concerns with officials after being injured in a crash at the Whistler Sliding Center last November.

Hoeger, attempting to qualify for another Olympics at age 56, told the paper that he lost consciousness and sustained a concussion when his sled struck an opening in the wall near the women's start ramp.

The paper said among the issues raised by Hoeger in letters and e-mails to Canadian and international officials was the lack of access to practice runs.

The paper reported that athletes from countries with small, under-financed teams said Canadian officials were unsympathetic to requests for more practice time, even as the Whistler track was proving to be faster and more difficult than originally designed.

Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21 and competing for the country of Georgia in his first Winter Olympics, died following a violent crash last Friday during a training run for the men's luge singles. Kumaritashvili slipped off the track and struck a metal pole while going at a high rate of speed.

The Times reported that Kumaritashvili had completed 26 runs on the Whistler course. It said the Canadian team's athletes had made an average of 250. An international luge official told the paper that the Canadians were within the rules for providing access to the track -- host countries typically have more access to competition venues.

Hoeger told the paper he knew the track was "extremely difficult." He said he had "heard enough horror stories."

"Every athlete treats this track with the utmost respect. Nearly every athlete is scared to death of this track," he told the paper.

The Times reported that the part of the track where Hoeger crashed Nov. 13 -- the entrance ramp for the women's start -- was later covered by a barricade for the men's runs. Officials erected a wall above the track where Kumaritashvili's deadly crash occurred last week.

Luge competition at the Vancouver Olympics finished on Wednesday.

The paper said athletes were frustrated, too, that the Canadians had offered extra training runs to a good Russian team in an arrangement that would give the Canadians more access at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

One athlete, Ruben Gonzalez, 47, of the Argentine luge team, told the Times: "There's two groups of people: there's the haves and the have-nots. You know that going in."

Hoeger began corresponding with Olympic and luge officials after he was not allowed to make up training sessions, the Times reported. His lawyer told the paper Hoeger has not decided whether or not to file a lawsuit.

One official, Svein Romstad, secretary general of the International Luge Federation, told the paper that the Canadians granted requests for additional training time when it became clear that the track was running faster than previously estimated.

Romstad told the paper that extra training time was set aside in January for athletes from unseeded teams, but that allocating time on the track is the responsibility of the Canadians.

[PurpleMaddy]

One of my concerns after this terrible event happened was why would the olympic committe say that it was the lugers fault, then all of the sudden put up a retaining wall and to make matters worse make all the lugers start from a lower position.

To me, those actions alone proves that something was terribly wrong. I have a hard time believing that it was his fault. Why put pillers at the bottom of the track ? I hope his parents sue in this case.

[T100]

Its over. give it rest and let the powers that be sort it out!
There is SFA that you nor I can do about it other than rehash the rights and wrongs of the olympic comm.

peace