Although the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics don’t begin until this evening, the games have already met with tragedy. A Georgian luger (as in the country of Georgia, not the state), Nodar Kumaritashvili, died while making a trial luge run at the Whistler Sliding Center.

Kumaritashvili was sliding down the fastest part of the track, when he slid out of control, flew over a wall, and hit a steel beam. He was knocked unconscious, then died after he arrived at the hospital.

Georgia is considering dropping out of the Vancouver Olympics entirely, and are unsure of whether they will be participating in tonight’s opening ceremonies.

Some are calling for the cancellation of all sliding events after this tragedy. The Whistler track is dangerous; the athletes are achieving speeds that are faster than previous tracks. However, the Olympics only come once every four years. Not everybody will have the opportunity to compete in Sochi in 2014. Rather than cancelling the event, my take on it is that if anything is to be done, it would be better for everyone to either slow down the ice, move the starting gate further down the track, install safety measures, or move the event. If they can helicopter in mountains of snow, like they have been with Cypress Mountain, they can find a way to make the show go on.

Since the Winter Olympics began in 1924, Kumaritashvili has been the fourth Olympian to die in the winter games. The first two deaths occurred in 1964, after Australian skier Ross Milne struck a tree during a training run. During the same year, British luger Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypecki also died in a training run. Oddly enough, in 1964, the Olympics was also facing a lack of snow; the Austrian army trucked in ice from elsewhere. In 1992, Swiss skier Nicholas Bochatay died after crashing into a snow grooming machine.

While this event is a tragedy, the other athletes do have a choice over whether to compete or not. Engineers should do whatever they can to make the event as safe as possible, but it would be unfair to everyone else to cancel the event.

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