I know people are (rightly) upset about this. The course is faster than the engineers felt it would be. After athletes felt it was too difficult it should have been re-engineered or moved to another track. However, these kinds of comments and conspiracy theories are highly offensive. You know nothing about The Canadian People if you think we would want athletes lives jeopardized for the sake of medals. I don't think I've read anything more offensive on Golden Skate in all my years here.
I am not the one to paint all Canadians under one brush. I would think and hope that most fair-minded Canadians, or really, anybody, would be outraged by this. However, that does not mean that no Canadian would ever be involved in something like this. Really, that suggestion is just absurd and inexplicable.
The facts are what they are. Athletes of all countries, even Canadian ones, have pointed out this course is one of the fastest and most dangerous in Olympic history. The Canadian coach himself conceded that Canadian athletes were given hundred more times to practice on this unusual and challenging course, while athletes and representatives from other countries have protested this unfair advantage. This is all on record. All of these things are intentional: the course design and the extra practice time for Canadian athletes. It's a deliberate attempt to give Canadian athletes a leg up in the various races. This isn't much of a conspiracy, it's just a blatantly engineered home advantage. I would merely think this unsportsmanlike, and nothing more, if it didn't 'cause a fatal accident. This is only the second time in Olympic history that someone has died in luging, the first being the debut of the sport in the Olympics in 1964. This was entirely unnecessary and the result of circumstances created by a small group of people who happen to be Canadian.
It behooves Canadians, those who truly believe in the value of human lives, to root out and condemn those among them who have other priorities. It does not become Canadians, or anybody, to defend those people instead in the name of national solidarity. No, this whole tragedy, caused by the negligence and ruthlessness of a small group of people does not make Canadians as a whole look better. But how it is handled may yet show what most Canadians are made of, and that they are the decent, fair-minded people that most people of the world are.
