Case Study:
Did Faulty Decision Making Lead to the Death of Luge Racer Nodar Kumaritashvili?
Years before a young luge racer from the Republic of Georgia flew to his death at the Olympics here last week, officials made a series of decisions designed to make the icy track a commercial success after the games but that left it faster-and ultimately more dangerous-than any competitive track before. Driven in part by the desire to locate the luge and bobsled track from the 2010 Vancouver Games in a high-traffic tourist area, planners chose a valley at a Whistler resort that was steeper and narrower than sites chosen for previous Olympics ... Officials say Nodar Kumaritashvili's death had nothing to do with these new speeds and challenges, and maintain that the track was safe. Instead, they say it was because he failed to control his sled. A reconstruction of the events leading up to Mr. Kumaritashvili's death show that the track was,from its inception, inherently difficult and was the result of decisions that were related to commerce, not sport. Before Vancouver bid for the 20 I 0 Winter Games, the city's organizing committee members consulted closely with the two international federations that set standards for tracks used by bobsledding and luge: The International Luge Federation and International Federation of Bobsleigh and Tobogganing. The federations and organizing committee members first looked at Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver, which they considered a top choice for the track, say people involved in the course's early planning. But soon, the Vancouver bid committee agreed to move the location up into the Canadian Rockies to the mountain ski resort town of Whistler, where the alpine ski events would be taking place. Tim Gayda, the vice president of sport for the Vancouver organizing committee [Vanoc], told the Vancouver Sun in October 2002 that the decision would make the track financially viable after the games. "In order to make this thing financially sustainable, we want it someplace where people will pay top dollar to go whipping down this thing in both summer and winter," he told the newspaper. The luge and bobsledding federations, he added, were "pushing us to look at options at Whistler." ... Bob Storey, the bobsled federation's president and a former bobsledder, said it would be jumping to conclusions to blame Mr. Kumaritashvili's crash on speed. "The Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not attribute it to design flaws and did not attribute it to speed," he said. "The reason they call it an accident is that nobody can define the cause." Weather was one factor in locating the run in Whistler, according to Terry Gudzowsky, a technical delegate for the bobsled federation who, as then part of Canada's bobsled federation, participated in the initial planning. Grouse Mountain often has warmish, wet winters that could lead to mushier, slower ice. Whistler is at a much higher, alpine elevation, making it more appealing to the sport. "That was not an engineering decision," says Mr. Storey of the bobsled federation. "That was a commercial decision." ... Mr. Gudzowsky says his sketch was sent to German luge-course designer Udo Gurgel. The 71-year-old Mr. Gurgel had built most of the major new luge runs in the world, including six Olympic tracks, over four-plus decades of course design. He says the Whistler terrain was one of the steepest and narrowest possible. Its 100-yard wide valley compares with Calgary's 300 yards and Salt Lake City's 500 yards. That meant the site was too narrow to build in typical speed-slowing long curves, called "kreisel " curves, Mr. Gurgel said. Whistler's had to be short and tight, which meant high gravitational forces against the driver in the curves and, toward the end, because the G-forces would be too much to bear, almost no curves, allowing sleds to break through past top speeds. The course's dangers became part of its marketing. "Vivid, violent, and rough-the Whistler Sliding Center is not for the faint of heart," the Web site of the center, operated by Vanoc, said in promotional material. ... "The track has a rhythm that every slider must try to capture. Sliders must find it early in their run. If they lose it, it will be hard to get back on the beat." ... "It was crazy fast," recalls Polish luger Maciej Kurowski, who tried out the track when it opened. "The problem is everyone wants to go faster and faster in this sport." ... As often happens during Olympic controversies, numerous committees and federations are involved and it is often unclear who bears ultimate responsibility. The IOC and Vanoc have both said they aren't responsible for the tracks because they essentially subcontract technical specifications out to the luge and bobsleigh federations. Within a few hours of the accident, those two groups declared their work flawless and blamed the Georgian athlete.
Q1. Does the decision-making process used to select the site for the luge track resemble more of a rational or non rational process? Explain.
Q2. Which of the seven evidence-based decision making implementation principles were used by Olympic officials? Provide examples to support your conclusions.
Q3. How could the site selection committee have used analytics to a greater extent than evidenced in the case? Provide specific recommendations.
Q4. Use the ethical decision-making tree to determine if the site location decision was ethical.
Q5. Which of the common decision-making biases were evident in this case? Provide examples.
Your answer must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman font (size 12), one-inch margins on all sides, APA format and also include references.