Mitch Albom on the luge and his experiences on one

POSTED: FEB. 14, 2010

A ghost that hovers over the icy track
BY MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


I've been on a luge sled. And I've crashed.

I've felt my jaw vibrate as my helmet dribbled on the ice. Felt my shoulders smack against the walls of a straightaway. Felt the discombobulation of looking down over your feet as you try desperately to steer, pinballing off the sides, finally separating from the sled and scraping your butt down the frozen track.

I was younger then and traveling with the U.S. luge team through Europe. The lugers sort of adopted me -- I was the first journalist most of them had ever spoken to -- and before long, they had me on the track, trying a minor-league version of what they did.

The luge community in those days was small, tight, brave and low-tech, like the fighter pilots that pioneered our space program. The Americans mostly stayed in cheap hotels, slept three to a room, traveled in a van, ate candy bars for training and fixed their own sleds. They were funny, grubby, detail-oriented and fearless -- their love of speed was NASCAR on caffeine -- but there was one thing that lowered their eyes and softened their voices.

The words "he came out of the track."

The drama of speed and g-forces

You never wanted to do that. It was almost impossible. The gravitational forces of going 70 or 80 m.p.h. slammed you into the ice (they are what bounce your helmet during the curves) and while you can smack and bruise yourself all over the serpentine walls, you are pretty much in the track to stay.

But there is a brief window, a split second really, coming out of a curve, where the walls get low and where it is possible, if you lose control and are going too fast and the ice gods are not with you, that you could go airborne and fly out of the track.

Which is what happened to an Olympic luger Friday morning, during a training run, on the day the Vancouver Winter Games were to begin. His name was Nodar Kumaritashvili, from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He was a back-of-the-pack competitor, only 21 years old.

When I crashed, I was going 30 m.p.h.

He was going almost 90.

And he's dead.

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