Tragedy at Vancouver

This morning a Georgia luger was killed during a practice run. When I first heard about it all I heard was a luger was killed. My heart skipped a beat. The Engineers partner at work has a cousin who is an Olympic luger. He is very close to his cousin, in fact I hear they talk several times a week no matter where in the world he is at the time. If it turned out to be his cousin I can't imagine the devastation he would experience. You see one year ago this month his 8 year old son died in a tragic accident. He is no longer the man I knew before then. This would be a final blow to a man who is barely hanging on.

So even though I am saddened by the loss of a young man who was reaching the peak of hopes, dreams and goals he worked his whole life for, I am equally relieved that he wasn't a young American luger.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Georgia luger, his team mates and especially his family.

Edited to add 2/14/2010: Last night my Olympic obsessed family stayed up until midnight watching the games. The watched the luger's closely for our only personal link (and a very loose one at that) to the Olympics. It was half way though that they realized that he isn't a luger he does skeleton. It changes nothing I wrote above but it does make me feel like I have a big "L" on my forehead.