Four years after a luge athlete died on a training run in Vancouver on an Olympics course that had drawn widespread criticism, the Winter Games face another safety issue.
Jonathan Hayward / THE CANADIAN
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Maxence Parrot of Bromont, Que., flies through the air during a slopestyle snowboard training run at the Sochi Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014.
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KRASNAYA POLYANA, RUSSIA—Four years after a luge athlete died on a training run in Vancouver on an Olympics course that had drawn widespread criticism, the Winter Games face another safety issue four days before the opening ceremony.
Officials scrambled Monday to make changes to the slopestyle course here after a top snowboarder broke his collarbone in a crash and several athletes raised concerns about the safety of the course, including one who said, “It’s like jumping out of a building.”
“It looks pretty sketchy,” Roope Tonteri, a snowboarder from Finland, told reporters after a training session at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, where slopestyle will make its Olympics debut. “I think they wanted to make big kickers and it’s not really good for riders and it’s not really safe anymore. I just don’t want to get injured. It’s not a really fun course to ride.”
Torstein Horgmo of Norway, a medal contender in a sport that features a long downhill course of obstacles followed by a series of large jumps, crashed on the rail portion of the course. A team official, Thomas Harstad, said he landed on his face and shoulder.
Horgmo is out of the Games.
“I am terribly sorry about this,” he said in a statement. “Injuries and falls are a part of this sport, but the timing is really bad.”
Men’s and women’s snowboarders discussed the course’s safety issues after Monday’s three-hour training session and proposed changes to the sport’s officials.
“The last jump has a lot of impact on it, and the takeoff is really long,” said Charles Guldemond, a U.S. snowboarder. “Some of the guys and girls are intimidated. I felt like I was dropping out of the sky.”
Sebastien Toutant of Canada said the big jump was like leaping from a building.
“I should put on my Canadian flying squirrel suit,” he said.
flying squirrel suit,” he said.
Roberto Moresi, the assistant snowboard race director, said officials would modify the course to make it safer. The course designer, Anders Forsell, said the training session “worked out fine.”
Four years ago, on the eve of the Vancouver Games, Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a luge crash. The accident compelled organizers for this month’s Olympics to re-evaluate the design of their luge track.
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