Ninety miles per hour down a twisting hill, and then…it’s over. Just like that. Everything Nodar Kumaritashvili had worked and lived for was gone, in the twist and a turn, into thin air and amidst the slope of a literal lifetime. Vanished, gone, and replayed on national television. But why? The luger was doing what he had loved, practiced and worked on for such a long time. His ending was not the most glorious way to leave this world, but it should be respected and regarded equally.
Replaying it on television is not the way to regard a death that occurred no matter how suddenly. We have to think of the families and friends that are deeply affected by this gruesome fall. Nobody wants to witness their child, cousin, aunt, grand child, or best friend die from an accidental bloody slip-and-slide. At that, nobody wants to watch it again, and again.
We should, also, have some respect for the luger. Kumaritashvili had worked hard to be in the Olympics and had worked hard on that exact slope. He had strived to empower his legs and mind to gather himself together to pull off that dangerously intriguing hill. Still, the fact is, he did not pull it off. By replaying his death, we may not only be embarrassing his career as a luger, but we may also be giving off the assumption that he was not very good.
Disqualifying anyone’s career, dead or alive, is wrong. We as people need to have a little bit more respect, as do those in the media. It is one thing to inform and educate the public on an issue, but quite another to replay it over and over. Any one thing can also be redundant. His story was a tearjerker, but to drag it out is simply boring as well. Whoever decided that it would be a good idea to replay a death to entertain people was sick in the first place.
Everyone that was watching the Olympics at all already knew. If it was a tribute, it could have been less gruesome. A “Please remember” typed slide would have been better than actually seeing the death. It would have been less stomach-turning and vulgar to the public, and his family and friends, as well.
The media was in the wrong for showing this gruesome and horrifying death, but the fact that it was replayed is even worse. Let’s just hope for everyone’s sake that we don’t have to witness it again.
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