What We Can Learn From the Tragedy of Nodar Kumaritashvili

Hey, International Olympic Committee? Spare us the two-faced explanation that it was racer error, not your exceptionally dangerous track, that killed Nodar Kumaritashvili while you fix the track. That’s classless blaming of an athlete at best, and gauche posterior protection at worst. And continuing to show the video of Kumaritashvili’s crash, even slowing it down, is an icky necessary evil. At least NBC got better reviews on how it handled that than CTV did.I’ll admit that writing that felt good. Anger, though, isn’t worth the effort that could be otherwise invested in noting that there are a few things that can be taken from this tragedy.

Acknowledge Tragedy Without Exploiting It. NBC did this fairly well, especially considering that it’s much easier to get ripped for commission than omission in this case. But showing the video once and with an appropriate warning is probably plenty; slowing it down turns the death of an Olympic athlete into a terrifying snuff film on a deity’s DVR.

Safety Should Be Paramount. Darren Rovell nailed this point: the average viewer has no idea what the speeds of luge usually are, and aiming to make Vancouver’s luge track “the world’s fastest” was asking for trouble with very little benefit. In most motorsports, tragedy has necessitated changes for safety’s sake. Hopefully, all speed-based sports will take note of one more failure to prioritize safety over speed and make every effort to make it the last one.

Honesty Is the Only Policy. Want to make a story bigger? Don’t tell the whole truth about it. That’s the problem the IOC created by saying one thing and doing another. There are simply too many media for reporting and criticism in today’s society for an organization to leave an angle open on a story this important and expect it to not be plumbed. Alas, we don’t consider the IOC a paragon of anything, do we?

There is no way to make Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death anything but a sad moment for Georgia and its Olympic team. But there are many ways to learn lessons from it.

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