Athletes complaining about safety at Olympics signed waiver “I compete at my own risk”

Inside the Rings: Olympians compete at own risk

WHISTLER, British Columbia — Enough, already, with all the bleating about the risks and dangers of competing at the Winter Olympics.

No one is forcing the athletes to be here. A condition of entry for all of the 2,632 Olympians was that they sign this waiver: “I participate in the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver at my own risk.”

They are nearly all adults, mostly old enough to vote, buy beer and decide whether throwing themselves down a steep iced chute with no brakes, twist like gyroscopes off ramps of hardened snow or hurtle down slopes almost too steep to climb up really is wise. An exception could be made for Australian snowboarder Scott James, who competed with a broken wrist at the ripe young age of 15. Does his family know he’s here? Or did he slip out of the house with a cry of “just popping out to the shops, be back soon!”

Anyhow, if the courses are too dangerous for them, if they feel that the risks to their lives and limbs are too great, even Olympians can always pull out and go home.

If that sounds far-fetched and heartless, then consider the example of Swiss bobsled pilot Daniel Schmid. After he crashed twice in training trying to master the treacherous Olympic sliding track, he and his team decided enough was enough. He was pulled from competition and is now a tourist at these games.

Swiss team boss Markus Wasser said Schmid, who took in some men’s skiing on Sunday, agreed with the decision to yank him, recognizing that “he was out of control” on the track where luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed.

“My health is more important to me than hurtling down the track like I’m tired of life,” The Globe and Mail newspaper quoted Schmid as saying.

Bravo, Daniel, for knowing your limits, for recognizing not only the high risks of sledding, but also that you are no longer prepared to run them. At these troubled games, darkened by Kumaritashvili’s needless death, not everyone has been so circumspect.

In Alpine, some of the loudest whines have come from the husband of star U.S. racer Lindsey Vonn. Even though his wife won Olympic gold on it, Thomas Vonn was critical of the super-challenging downhill course where several women had some very scary crashes. Acknowledging afterward that the course was “very difficult,” race director Atle Skaardal announced that it was being dumbed down somewhat for later races.

After his wife won bronze in Saturday’s super-G and acknowledged that she skied more conservatively that she should have, Vonn again spoke of the “quick and dangerous, like an eliminator-style course.”

But Vonn is also competing with a shin so bruised that she could barely pull on a ski boot before the games. She said she refused to have an X-ray because she didn’t want to know whether she is carrying a season-ending fracture.

Brave, without question, but wise?

In bobsled, Shauna Rohbock worries about the hyper speeds at Whistler Sliding Center.

“I’m like ‘Oh my gosh, this is just stupid’ This is just so fast,” the 2006 silver medalist told The Associated Press.

But remind Rohbock that she’s old enough to decide whether to compete and this is her response:

“You’re not going to say ‘no.’ You’re up at the top of the track, you’re not going to say, ‘I’m not going to go down this.’”

Her brakewoman, Michelle Rzepka, interjected: “We’re athletes, the most competitive kind of people. There’s no way.”

Brave, without question, but wise?

This is the Olympics, not a bunnyhill race after the first week of ski school. Courses should be hard. That they found ways to triumph over dangers and difficulties that tripped up other competitors makes Olympic champions only more admirable. Even beginners can understand the danger inherent to mountain sports — it’s clear from the ski-lift disclaimers that warn people to ride at their own risk.

Finding the sweet spot between suitable and stupid danger is tricky, especially when poor weather has made grooming courses so difficult. Make a course too easy and you can be certain that people will complain, too — just as some women lugers did when, after Kumaritashvili’s death, they were told to race from the start-point for juniors, not their usual and faster start higher up the now notorious track.

“Not fun” is how the eventual bronze medalist, Natalie Geisenberger of Germany, described the neutered start.

No Olympian should fly home in a brown casket as Kumaritashvili did. That officials later put up white safety boards after curve 16, where he slammed into a metal post, certainly indicates that the extra protection should have been there all along. Had it been, the Georgian might still be alive.

But Kumaritashvili was also acutely aware that the track is dangerous — aren’t they all? — telling his father, “Dad, I really fear that curve.”

Yet he still raced down it.

Brave, without question, but wise?

John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org.