World Cup lugers return to crash-marred track

The world's elite lugers return for the first time this week to the track that hosted the Vancouver Olympics competition, where Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a training crash. Nearly two years after Kumaritashvili died from massive head and torso injuries, the Whistler Sliding Centre will be the site of the two-day Viessmann Luge World Cup, beginning Friday. The 21-year-old Kumaritashvili died after he hurtled off the sliding track in a training wreck, slamming into an unpadded steel girder just hours before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Whistler is 115 kilometres (72 miles) north of Vancouver. The horrific death overshadowed the luge competition and caused organizers to move the men's starting position lower down the track to the women's start. The women were moved down to the junior ramp in an effort to slow the competitors down and minimize the risk. Organizers have adopted similar rules for this week and reshaped some of the curves. Vancouver Games organizers found in their own enquiry that the track was not at fault, blaming driver error instead. A Canadian coroner's report last year suggested that Kumaritashvili's "relative lack of experience" on such a challenging track could have contributed to the accident which killed him. But it was also revealled in that report that the president of the International Luge Federation had expressed concern in an email to John Furlong, the chief executive of the games organizing committee, one year before the Games "that the track is in their view too fast and someone could get badly hurt." Kumaritashvili, whose father was also a luger, has not been forgotten in his hometown of Bakuriani, Georgia. A huge picture of Kumaritashvili is prominently displayed at a main traffic intersection of the picturesque ski resort community. Kumaritashvili's father David has questioned whether his son was effectively condemned to death by the alleged negligence. Georgia's Olympic Committee is also not letting the issue fade away and has described the allegations as a "huge scandal". It has said that it would call for another investigation if the alleged negligence is confirmed.