Unfortunate accident

The ongoing 21st Winter Olympics had its first whiff of controversy the day of the opening ceremonies. Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a training accident when he lost control of his luge in the final turn of the world's fastest course and slammed into a steel support at over 90 miles an hour.
It's a tragedy when any young athlete dies. Luge is a crazy sport – imagine sliding down an ice chute at 90 miles an hour, lying flat on your back, only shifting body weight to steer.
To say it seems dangerous is an understatement, but in fact, the last luge accident that resulted in death, before Kumaritashvili, was in 1964.
Whistler Sliding Centre's track has been nicknamed the 'beast'. In light of the accident, many have cried out over the lack of safety of the track.
Let's be clear: the simple fact that the concrete pillars weren't padded is reprehensible. It points to the fact that extra padding and retaining walls should be added to all tracks.
An article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine analyzed luge injuries between 1985 and 1992 at Lake Placid, NY. Its luge course is considered to be a technically tricky course to many lugers, although considerably slower than Whistler's.
The study analyzed more than 57,000 runs by competitive lugers of both sexes. Participants were between the ages of 12 and 35 years old.
It recorded 407 injuries. An overwhelming majority of them were muscle sprains, bruises and scrapes. Over the seven-year study, only 10 injuries were serious enough to force athletes to miss training.
In fact, the study found that injuries to the athletes were more likely to occur while carrying their luges away from the track than on it.
Whistler's track has been around for three years. Its crash stats are no different than other tracks around the globe, according to officials from the International Luge Federation.
Out of more than 30,000 runs in three different sliding sports — bobsled, luge and skeleton — Whistler has seen 340 crashes total.
Even coaches and lugers at the Olympics have never seen an athlete thrown from the course like Kumaritashvili was.
'Everything came together at the same time,' said Tony Benshoof, a U.S. luger, 'but there are places on every track where that could feasibly happen.'
Lets call this what it is – a terrible freak accident. It was correct for the modifications to be made on the track. The ice on curve 16 was shaved down to make it harder for sleds to fly up the wall. In addition, a new retaining wall was put in place and a lower start point was being used.
Are these modifications enough?
No one will know.
Dangerous sports such as luge will have freak accidents, and the athletes who choose to participate know this going in.