Tragedy at the Olympics

Friday February 12th, the Olympic Opening Ceremony was filled with excitement but the lingering feeling of sadness filled with stadium as the athletes and audience members remembered 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed while taking a test run on Friday morning. Deaths at the Olympics are rare because these althetes are so well trained faults generally do not occur. However, Nodar Kumaritashvili is not the first lost Olympian.

Previous Deaths

• 1964: Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski, a Polish-born British luger, died while training on the Olympic course in Austria two weeks before the opening ceremony
• 1964: Ross Milne, 19 from Australia, died after slamming into a tree when he flew off course during a training run. He was a downhill racer.
• 1992 Albertville Games, Swiss speed skier Nicolas Bochatay died ater colliding with a snow-grooming machine during a practice run.
• 1960 Summer Games: Knut Jensen, a Danish cyclist, died after fracturing his skull when he collapsed during a road race at the Rome Olympics.
• 1912 in Sweden, Francisco Lazaro, 21 year old marathon runner from Portugal, died after collapsing from sunstroke and heart trouble.
  
  For more information about Olympic Deaths check out this link