(ATR) The International Luge Federation (FIL) prepares a report on the death of the Georgian luger in Vancouver and opens an account for donations to help his family.
The report is due to be presented to IOC President Jacques Rogge in mid-April, Svein Romstad, FIL secretary general tells Around the Rings.
“We want to look at the various elements that went into this accident,” says Romstad, noting that reports from the British Columbia Coroner and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be incorporated in the findings.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to learn and understand from this so that it doesn’t happen again,” he says.
The report will also address plans for Sochi, where a new track has yet to be built. Romstad says that track will be slower than the one in Whistler where Nodar Kumaritashvili died Feb. 12 during a training run.
Kumaritashvili, 21, fell off his sled while traveling through a difficult turn at the track. He slid along the ice, but flew off the course and collided with a steel pillar.
After the accident, a plywood wall was erected to cover the gap between the track and the pillar. Padding was also installed on the steel pillars along the track.
“Without jumping to conclusions, it’s an obvious thing that the pillars should have been padded. I think there’s a big question-mark, would the padding would have mattered in this case?”
Romstad says the death of Kumaritashvili was the first for a FIL-sanctioned event since Dec., 1975.
Fund Opens with 10,000 Euros Donation
The International Luge Federation has launched a fund to aid the family Kumaritashvili.
FIL has already sent 10,000 Euros to his family, which is said to be in urgent need of support.
“We have been in close contact with the family,” says Romstad. He says the donation from FIL was sent a couple of weeks ago.
Money will go to help pay to help rebuild the family home which was destroyed by fire a few years ago. Kumaritashvili, the family’s only son, is said to have been playing a major role in that rebuilding.
“We’ve had a lot of our federations say they want to help. That’s why we went public with the details of the fund,” Romstad says.
“This has touched so many people in the luge family and an enormous amount of people who have reached out who have had no connection with luge until this happened,” he says.
Donations from organizations and individualsfrom around the world can be made to the account, established at a bank in Berchtesgaden, Germany, where the FIL headquarters is located.
International Luge Federation, donation account Kumaritashvili
Bank Sparkasse Berchtesgadener Land
Maximilian Str. 6
83471 Berchtesgaden
Germany
Account 20121422
Bank code 710 500 00
IBAN DE12 7105 0000 0020 1214 22
Swift-BIC BYLADEM1BGL
Romstad says this fund, for the immediate need of the family, is different from a longer-term project which is supposed to provide a track named for Kumaritashvili in Baukuriani, his home in western Georgia that is the center for winter sport in the country.
Romstad says he expects FIL, the IOC and the Republic of Georgia to take part in that effort.
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Written by Ed Hula.
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