The 2010 Winter Olympic Olympics began with a trib­ute to 21-year-old luge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died in a train­ing crash on Feb. 12.

A native of the Republic of Georgia, Kumaritashvili was trav­el­ing 90 mph when he lost con­trol of his sled and crashed into an unpadded pole out­side of the track. He was rushed to the hos­pi­tal at the bot­tom of the moun­tain where he died shortly after.

The track at the Whistler Sliding Centre is said to be built as the fastest track the world has ever seen. Some of the com­peti­tors feel the track is too fast and too dan­ger­ous. The course boasts cor­ners named “50−50” and “Shiver.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Luge Federation (FIL) decided to re-open the course after rais­ing the exit of cor­ner 16 and chang­ing the ice pro­file. There had already been two crashes in the pre­vi­ous 24 hours, one of which resulted in a Romanian woman being knocked unconscious.

The IOC and FIL said the acci­dents were not caused by prob­lems with the track and are tak­ing a “show must go on approach” to the acci­dent. This begs the ques­tion: How far is too far?

Extreme sports such as alpine ski­ing, bob­sled­ding and snow­board cross are becom­ing faster and more dan­ger­ous as ath­letes test their lim­its. All ath­letes are well aware of the risks involved in com­pet­ing in sports that could result in injury if improp­erly performed.

However, the ath­letes should never feel that the sur­face or course in which they are com­pet­ing on is the rea­son for the dan­ger. Safety should be put above all else in any com­pe­ti­tion and win­ning an Olympic gold medal is not worth sac­ri­fic­ing one’s life.

The track was orig­i­nally built to allow speeds of 85 mph, but many lugers have reached speeds exceed­ing 95 mph. The World Luge Federation saw the speeds in time tri­als months before the Olympics began and raised con­cerns. The IOC, how­ever, knew of the dan­gers and did noth­ing to cor­rect the prob­lem or change the course in any way.

The Canadian luge team is not com­plain­ing as its mem­bers were allowed over 300 test runs each. Racers from other nations were lim­ited to 40 runs. The IOC allowed host-nation Canada this tremen­dous advan­tage over other nations.

Since Olympic ath­letes are banned from using per­for­mance enhanc­ing drugs, the IOC should be banned from hav­ing bias toward the home nation. If Canada takes the top two or even sweeps the medals in the event, the IOC will bear the full brunt of scrutiny from nations around the world, and rightly so. In this case the home team has a deadly unfair advantage.