Georgian Olympic Committee seek answers after Luge crash development

The Georgian Olympic Committee has sent a letter to the Vancouver Olympic Committee, organization committee and the International Olympic Committee regarding the confidential correspondence between the committee members and organizers, which revealed new details in the controversy on the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumatitashvili last year.

Canadian journalists discovered private e-mails between the members of the aforementioned committees, which clarifies that the VANOC was 9 months beforehand, aware of the faults of the Whistler track, where the Georgian luger died during a practice.

GOC requests comments on some secret correspondence between VANOC and FIL on the track safety revealed by the CBC News network. According to the released information that organizers and FIL had safety concerns about the luge track, namely VANOC received a copy of the letter from FIL in March 2009 addressed to the track designer expressing concern about the speeds on the track.

“An investigation conducted by CBC comes in great contradiction with the Official Report published by the International Luge Federation “On the Accident of Georgian Athlete N. Kumaritashvili at Whistler Sliding center on February 12, 2010 during Official Luge Training for the XX Olympic Winter Games” submitted to the IOC,” the statement reads.

The statement also stresses the reaction of Georgian society after releasing this news on CBC and states that that the news caused great disappointment and alarm among Georgian society and our mass media sources, especially after Georgian NOC had received the official decision of the investigation commission on the details of the tragedy where nothing was mentioned about any warning that the track was too fast and someone could get badly hurt.