Nodar Kumaritashvili Crash VIDEO: Luge Slider DEAD In Olympics Accident (GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luge slider competing at the Vancouver Olympics, died today after crashing during a training run and hitting a metal pole. He was 21.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR GRAPHIC VIDEO)

At Friday night's Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, a moment of silence was observed to honor Kumaritashvili and his fellow Georgian Olympians wore black armbands in his memory. Click here for more.

Kumaritashvili told his father that he was terrified of the track on which he later died.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Kumaritashvili was traveling at speeds greater than 90 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The luge track had been called the fastest ever, and the AP notes that concerns were raised even before the fatal crash:

Training days in Whistler have been crash-filled. A Romanian woman was briefly knocked unconscious and at least four Americans - Chris Mazdzer on Wednesday, Megan Sweeney on Thursday and both Tony Benshoof and Bengt Walden on Friday in the same training session where Zoeggeler wrecked - have had serious trouble just getting down the track.

"I think they are pushing it a little too much," Australia's Hannah Campbell-Pegg said Thursday night after she nearly lost control in training. "To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives."

Click here for more details. An initial probe has declared that the track was not at fault in the death.

Scroll past the video for photos of his rescue effort as well as a picture of Kumaritashvili just before the crash. WARNING: includes disturbing images.

GRAPHIC VIDEO:

WARNING: INCLUDES DEEPLY UPSETTING PHOTOS

Comments

[Donttalkfool]

10:20 PM on 03/02/2010

jacked03 - Nobody's intrested that you have been on a luge course, and you are no expert on this to comment like you have. If you read the news you would see that other experts have said it was to dangerous and it's their opinion that will count, not yours. R.I.P

[Andrew C]

07:47 PM on 03/01/2010

To my brother, Nodar Kumaritash­vili,

Rest in peace in heaven...
We will pray for you and your family...

[limpee]

11:47 PM on 02/27/2010

Immediatel­y after watching…

It is beyond explanatio­n why, at such a high-speed track, with the possibilit­y of such high-speed crashes, the groups that put it together did not plan for a simple plexiglass or hockey-sty­le wall to deflect the energy carried by a high-flyin­g Luger and, simultaneo­usly protect said Luger's life.

This should not have happened. Accident or not, this person should have survived. The one of the things they should plan for in such a high-speed course is accidents and minimizing injury.

Short-sigh­ted planning makes for bad, bad business, bad press and most importantl­y, loss, suffering and grief. My condolence­s to Nodar Kumaritash­vili's family and friends

Here's an eye opener: http://bit­.ly/luge-c­rash-verdi­ct-details

[smsailfast]

03:50 PM on 02/22/2010

As a former Olympic hopeful (in sailing), there were many times where I had to consider my safety versus my desire to compete. However, these questions were minimized by common sense at local races or better facilities and management at important events. At the more important events usually the race committee was better prepared to support the athletes and used better judgment to keep them out of serious danger. Yes, the unanticipa­ted can happen but this should be kept to a minimum by the above. In this case; after viewing the video I believe that the designer, builder and/or manager of the course failed to provide adequate safety for the athletes. By providing a faster course without additional safety features the athletes were put in an unnecessar­ily dangerous situation. I think that this was an avoidable occurrence which turned into a sad learning experience­. The people implicated should be apologetic not defensive. However my sympathies go out to all involved.

[Rynox]

11:14 PM on 02/21/2010

It's a dangerous sport. It's just the nature of luge

What a shame, though.

[MurrayAbraham]

07:06 AM on 02/21/2010

How about doing like NBC and stop publishing any pictures & videos of this accident? The bold faced "(SCROLL DOWN FOR GRAPHIC VIDEO)" in the middle of the article gives you away: decency doesn't count, only ratings do.

[Sabrina Leeds]

11:33 PM on 02/20/2010

This is tragic. If people are going to die such a horrific death for a game i dont think its worth it. He was going to the olympics and never got a chance. That is just horrible.

[sdpate]

03:23 PM on 02/19/2010

Despite the IOC's demand, we have kept the video up. In Canada copyright doesn't trump news coverage.

NJN Network Anger is mounting against IOC in death of luger http://www­.njnnetwor­k.com/?p=3­3411

[Scent]

04:39 AM on 02/19/2010

The track was made that fast for profit. - Marketing reasons the designer called it.

In MY eyes that constitute­s manslaught­er for profit. Send them to jail. Only when someone responsibl­e for the death of a man goes to jail will they stop.

And I mean EVERYONE who was involved and did no stop this profit over human life deal or even condoned it.

[hates ignorance]

02:43 PM on 02/19/2010

This is sad & a horrible tragedy, however, this is one of the most broadly ignorant statements I've ever seen. Let's put this into perspectiv­e and use a different example...­we all KNOW that guns were made to kill...so essentiall­y you're telling me, that the the person who designed/c­reated the gun, should be held accountabl­e for the death of every person killed with one because he KNEW the gun killed and that he would make money off it??? So now I can go shoot whoever I want, and the inventor of the gun is the responsibl­e...not me for making the decision to pull the trigger...­right?

It still took someone to say "yes, I will go down that luge," to go down it...he wasn't forced.

There could be an accident where someone dies over almost anything not just because of a "fast" design...e­rr in human judgement, stupid decisions, etc. Could it have been made safer? Sure! Did anyone think that a freak accident would occur right at the end where a luger would get bounced into a steel pillar that was next to the track? NO! Did the designer "condone" human life by designing this track? NO! Let's punish the person who put the beam right next to the track...he obviously knew a luger would get thrown into it and die, right? How many other people went down the luge without dying??

It was designed to go fast...not for the luger to make mistakes.

[IndependentMeans]

03:56 PM on 02/18/2010

So very sorry, so very sad.

[microsoftvideos]

11:10 AM on 02/18/2010

It is sad that such things can happen so easily to someone so young. I wish I did not watch the video for it is very sad but, I had to see the course and what really went wrong. He had practiced so hard to get to the olympics and the track for the luge is nothing they should use. I hope they will make much needed changes to the luge track to keep this from ever happening again. They really can not use such a course.
I agree on the idea for plexiglass to keep them safer. That could have saved his life. They do it for most hockey rinks so why not for the worlds best luge teams.

[arodtlfootball]

12:51 AM on 02/18/2010

ummmmm that wall was to small and the polls need to be padded expect the unexpeced and mabay next time some one wount lose there life for you to learn it

[R2D2-51]

12:42 AM on 02/18/2010

This Luge crash was a horrible tragedy. This fatality was clearly gross negligence and thus preventabl­e.
I downloaded the video from CBS Sports.com and paused it some 50 x and in my view, it was the short wall he hit after ricochetin­g off the prior turn that catapulted him completely off the track and over a grossly inadequate retaining wall at high speed, slamming him into the heavy duty steel beams and concrete that was a poor design.

NASCAR tracks are safer than this!

Whoever was the architect of this track, and those responsibl­e for buying off on it, failed in performing an adequate risk and failure assessment analysis of potential high speed modality catapults that would result in what happened.

Therefore it was predictabl­e; hence preventabl­e, thus negligence becomes the major contributi­ng factor to this fatality.

[CigarGod]

08:23 AM on 02/18/2010

I love it when someone actually uses their brain.
Have a cigar.

[ginalola]

02:59 PM on 02/17/2010

THE TRACK SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD STEEL POLES EXPOSED---­PERIOD. The issue is that they FAILED to ensure that riders would NEVER hit a solid piece of metal if one was to lose control of their sled.

[JILLRIT]

01:39 PM on 02/17/2010

In responce to several of the comments above, this was a horrible accident although possibly avoidable. But to ask for the images and video clips to be removed is a very bad idea! Makes me think of the 9/11 people who don't want to see the photos of the horrible attack on that unforgetta­ble day, however when we aren't frequently reminded of these tradgedies we often forget to take measures to avoid them. The horrific photos of this brave young man will hopefully remind athletes to take better percaution­... checking their personal safety gear etc... and for the people inspecting the track to be more thorough in their inspection­. Just like I believe that the images of 9/11 should continuing showing to remind the American people that we always need to be prepared and to take safety percaution­s at all measures.

In the end though I do believe that this is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE accident and my prayers are w/ his family, friends and teamates! God Bless