Nodar Kumaritashvili (Georgian: ნოდარ ქუმარიტაშვილი; pronounced [nodaɾ kʰumaɾitʼaʃʷili]; 25 November 1988 – 12 February 2010) was a Georgian luge athlete who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony.

Aleko helped build a primitive luge run in Bakuriani in 1970; a more finished track, funded by the Soviet authorities, was built in 1973.

His father David won a USSR Youth Championship when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, and he was a three-time champion at the Spartakiad: once in two-man bobsleigh and twice in luge.

[7] While attending the Georgian Technical University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2009, Kumaritashvili maintained a rigorous training and competition schedule.

[15] In February 2005, concerns arose regarding the difficulties posed by Cesana Pariol, the track built for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

In the view of the Games organizers, the high speeds and technical challenges could be safely mitigated by imposing additional practice and graduated training requirements on the athletes.

[18] On 12 February 2010, after 25 previous attempts, 15 of them from the men's start, Kumaritashvili was fatally injured in a crash during his final training run,[19] after losing control in the last turn of the course.

He was thrown off his luge and over the sidewall of the track, striking an unpadded steel support pole at the end of the run.

[28] Upon entering BC Place Stadium, the Georgian team was greeted with a standing ovation from the assembled crowd.

[28] Later, during the opening ceremonies, a moment of silence was held to honour Kumaritashvili's memory, and both the Canadian and Olympic flags were lowered to half-mast.

[1][29] The FIL stated that Kumaritashvili's death "was not caused by an unsafe track,"[35] but as a preventive measure the walls at the exit of curve 16 were raised, and the ice profile was adjusted.

It attributed the accident to "driving errors starting in curve 15/16 which as an accumulation ended in the impact that resulted in him leaving the track and subsequently hitting a post...

This was a type of accident not seen before, and therefore "[w]ith the unknown and unpredictable dynamics of this crash, the calculation and construction of the walls in that section of the track did not serve to prevent the tragedy that happened.

"[40] However, the report also determined that during the homologation process and later sessions at the Whistler Sliding Centre, the track was faster than originally calculated.

[42] FIL Secretary General Svein Romstad summarized: "What happened to Nodar has been an unforeseeable fatal accident.

According to John Furlong, the chief executive of the 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee, proposals to build the sliding centre on Grouse Mountain near Vancouver were rejected early in the bid phase due to reservations expressed by the international luge, and the bobsleigh and skeleton, federations.

He also called upon the FIL to require athletes to engage in more mandatory training sessions prior to the Olympic Games and other major competitions.

[43] The coroner also commented, "The organizers, regulatory bodies and venue owners must ensure that no effort is spared to anticipate the unforeseeable as far as safety is concerned," and to "err on the side of caution, insisting on more, rather than less.

"[44] In 2013, Mont Hubbard, a University of California, Davis, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, issued a report claiming that Kumaritashvili's crash was probably caused by a "fillet," a joint between the lower edge of the curve and a vertical wall.

[45] Terry Gudzowsky, the president of ISC/IBG Group, a consortium involved in the construction of the Whistler track, dismissed Hubbard's theory as "flawed," stating that the data to replicate the ice surface at the site of the accident in three dimensions do not exist.