8 Olympic Tragedies

Last week, the Vancouver Olympic Games started, but was immediately turned sad, when we all learned about the death of a Georgian luger just a few hours before the opening ceremony.  So far, only two deaths have occured during official competition (both during summer games), but there have been many tragedies at other times during the games.


1912 Summer Olympics


Francisco Lazaro was a Portuguese marathon runner. During the Olympics in Stockholm (Portugal’s first Olympics), Francisco collapsed at the 29 kilometer mark. It was discovered later that he had covered himself in wax, which proved to be fatal since it didn’t allow him to sweat. He was 21.







1960 Summer Olympics


Knud Eneberg Jensen was a Danish cyclist who was competing in a road race at the Rome Olympics. He fell and fractured his skull. It was discovered later that he had taken drugs before the race. He was 23.






1964 Winter Olympics


Two incidents occurred during the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. The first was Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski, a Polish-born English luger. He died in a crash during practice.


The other was Australian downhill skier Ross Milne. He was practicing when his ski “caught an edge”, and he crashed into a tree.






1972 Summer Olympics


The Olympics are supposed to represent peace, which made the Munich Massacre even more tragic. Black September, a militant group associated with Yasser Arafat, snuck in to the Olympic village and shot and killed Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano. They then kidnapped 9 other Israeli athletes and coaches. As part of a negotiation the hostages and kidnappers were loaded on to two helicopters and taken to an airbase, where the German authorities were going to ambush them. After gunfire erupted, one of the helicopters and the hostages in it was destroyed by a hand grenade. The other hostages were all shot to death. Five of the Palestinian kidnappers and one German police officer were also killed.






1988 Winter Olympics


47 year-old Austrian Dr. Jorg Oberhammer, a surgeon and experienced skier, was skiing near the bottom of a hill at the Nakiska ski area near Calgary when he collided with another skier. Oberhammer was knocked into the path of a snow grooming machine. He was run over and died instantly.






1992 Winter Olympics


A similar accident occurred during the Albertville, France Olympics. Nicolas Bochatay, a Swiss speed skier was killed when he skied into a snow grooming machine during warm up. He was 27 at the time.






2010 Winter Olympics


The most recent Olympic tragedy was that of Nodar Kumaritashvili. The 21 year-old Georgian luger was practicing on the track at Whistler when he crashed and was thrown off the luge, and off the track. He hit an uncovered steel support pole at almost 90 mph. He was taken to Whistler hospital, where he was pronounced dead.