VANCOUVER -- Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics were worried about safety at the Whistler Sliding Centre almost a year before a luger crashed and died.
Documents obtained by the Globe and Mail through public disclosure laws include e-mails exchanged by VANOC chief executive John Furlong and vice-president of sport Tim Gayda responding to a letter from the president of the International Luge Federation (FIL) expressing concern about the track.
"There is nothing to do on our side but it does put in writing concern about the speeds of the track if there was ever an incident," Gayda wrote.
According to Furlong, "Embedded in this note (cryptic as it may be) is a warning that the track is, in their view, too fast and someone could get badly hurt. An athlete gets badly injured, or worse, and I think the case could be made we were warned and did nothing .... I'm not sure where the exit sign or way out is on this. Our legal guys should review at least."
Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, died on Feb. 12, 2010, near the end of his final training run on the track. The British Columbia coroner ruled the death accidental.
Gayda told QMI Agency Monday the letter was actually directed to Sochi 2014 organizers to ensure the Russian track would be built slower than Whistler's. Speeds at the 2010 Games venue exceeded designer's estimates but Gayda said VANOC made all safety modifications ordered by the FIL.
"The organizer builds the venues to the specifications of the international federation," Gayda said. "We did that. We did everything that was asked of us. They're the experts and we'd always turn to them."
In Furlong's memoir, Patriot Hearts, he claims VANOC never contemplated the death of an athlete. However, in June 2009, senior members of the VANOC medical team participated in a Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine simulation of a serious bobsled crash.
Gayda said the tragedy will always haunt Games organizers.
"When you see (images of) the city and country going off about the Games, for a lot of us we didn't feel that jubilance that everybody else had," he said.
Kumaritashvili's family received an insurance settlement of $150,000. Furlong wrote that he gave the 21-year-old's father the euro equivalent of $25,000 in cash when he traveled to the funeral in Georgia in March.
