Ain't misbehavin' (just asking questions)

A tanned, yet tense, John Furlong addressed the Vancouver Board of Trade on Feb. 11, the eve of the first anniversary of the 2010 Winter Olympics' opening in Vancouver. It was the first major event in Vancouver of his book tour to promote his memoir, Patriot Hearts.

Furlong's credibility was under attack after revelations by CBC's Fifth Estate that he knew there were serious doubts about safety at the Whistler Sliding Centre in March 2009. Less than a year later, the opening day of the Vancouver Games was marred by the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili near the end of a training run.

After his speech at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Furlong spoke with media. I had to ask him about a key passage in his book where he mentions a secret deal with then Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov before the International Olympic Committee's 2010 host city election in 2003. Vancouver would share notes with and give Russians bidding for the 2012 Summer Games a tutorial. In exchange, Vancouver would get the six or seven Russian votes.

National Public Radio's Howard Berkes was intrigued. He wrote a story that indicates the Furlong/Storey/Luzhkov deal may constitute a breach of the IOC's own Code of Ethics, which says:

"No candidate may enter into any promise or undertaking to be performed, whatever the timing of such performance, for the direct or indirect benefit of a member, a group of members, an organization or a region."

I asked Furlong for his reaction:

“The Mayor of Moscow is not an IOC member, you can talk to anybody but IOC members, that's what we did."

He also denied there was a "promise".

“We agreed to assist each other and the Mayor of Moscow, in return for us giving a hand to help us organize a bid, he told us he would try to influence them helping us. Plain and simple, happens all the time.”

Storey lost a bid for a fifth four-year term with FIBT in a September meeting at Lake Placid, N.Y. Italy's Ivo Ferriani edged the Ottawa-based Storey by two votes for the presidency. Luzhkov, coincidentally, was fired by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev two weeks later.

I also was curious about Furlong's relationship with Catherine Bachand, his former executive assistant.

The book is dedicated "To Catherine and the Canadian spirit."

There is a glowing acknowledgement to her on the final page.

"This book, just like the Games, was a walk on thin ice for me. A thousand times along the way I might have given up. I am grateful beyond words that I did not and am thankful for the support, encouragement, compassion, love, deep loyalty and inspiration of my dearest friend Catherine Bachand -- demonstrated in a thousand ways. Hers is a patriot heart. Thank you so much!"

Twice-married Furlong, who is intensely private, made no other mention of Bachand anywhere else in the book and he did not wish to discuss their relationship, which he insists is a friendship.

Mackin: "The book is dedicated to Catherine and you thank her at the end, but don't mention her in the actual text. I just wonder why?"

Furlong: "I wrote the book, it was my choice. She was my best friend..."

Mackin: "Was there any issue among the board or management about your friendship with her. Was there ever any push-back?

Furlong: "Stop it. She was my best friend. Behave yourself, I've answered you. Behave yourself."

Flashback: Feb. 12, 2010

Coroners service shuts sliding centre
Bob Mackin, QMI Agency

VANCOUVER: The Whistler Sliding Centre is closed while officials from the British Columbia Coroners Service investigate the death of a Georgian luger who died Friday morning in a training session.

Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, crashed in the final training session Friday morning. The Whistler Sliding Centre is the fastest sledding track in the world.

“The facility is currently closed for the purpose of this investigation,” BCCS provincial director Jeff Dolan told QMI. “Once the coroner or other investigators determine it’s safe to reopen the track, they will do so.”
Dolan said the luger’s fatal injuries will be examined, the equipment and track will be inspected and a detailed account of the
incident will be compiled.

The death was the most noteworthy sports event tragedy in the region since Molson Indy Vancouver track worker Jean Patrick Hein was struck by the racecar driven by Willy T. Ribbs on Sept. 2, 1990 near B.C. Place Stadium.

Furlong in for a rough ride

Bob McKeown wore number 42 as a centre with the Canadian Football League's Ottawa Rough Riders in the early 1970s but he couldn't relax and watch the big four-down game on Super Sunday. That didn't matter, he had to do what he could to preserve the Big Story.

The Fifth Estate reporter was scheduled to interview John Furlong, who happens to be a former Gaelic football player, on Monday in Toronto, when the VANOC CEO was kicking-off a tour to promote his memoir, Patriot Hearts. Furlong, however, wanted to see the documents CBC obtained first, so he could be prepared.

"We arranged to meet him in the lobby of the Royal York," McKeown told me on Feb. 10. "Usually we don't show people things before interviews but this only seemed fair."

The documents are the now famous emails from March 2009 that quote Furlong as being concerned about safety of the Whistler Sliding Centre.

“An athlete gets badly injured, or worse, and I think the case could be made we were warned and did nothing."

Less than a year later, Nodar Kumaritashvili died on opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Furlong was grief-stricken, but the emails question whether VANOC was guilty of ignoring warnings.

McKeown found out VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade went into damage control mode and convinced the board of directors to leak the documents to official broadcaster CTV and sponsor Globe and Mail.

So McKeown went on-air during the National on Sunday night, which is why he missed the Super Bowl. Normally, he said, a documentary airing on a Friday night would be edited by a Sunday. Not this case. He re-interviewed Furlong, added another interview with David Kumaritasvhili, the victim's father, and talked to former Chief Coroner Diane Rothon.

It will all be revealed on Friday, Feb. 11 at 9 p.m. (and repeated Sunday at 10 a.m.) on the Fifth Estate's Death at the Olympics.

"We've done a lot of stories which have been contentious never had one of the characters in the story leaking the material to other people," he said.

McKeown said he "admired the job (Furlong) did on the Games very much."

"He's a very direct guy in certain ways. Once he knew we had these documents, though he was also sharing them with others, he lived up to his commitment to talk to us."

But Furlong was not entirely forthcoming because "there are topics he clearly wants to avoid."

Though ruled an accident by the B.C. Coroners Service, Kumaritashvili's relative inexperience and the speed, difficulty and G-forces of the track were the the contributing factors. But FIL blamed driver error.

"Three of the four were directly related to the design of the track," McKeown said.

Furlong claimed that VANOC did all safety modifications the two federations agreed upon.

"They didn't," McKeown said. "When he says they did everything they (FIL and FIBT) asked, that's not really true. They did everything they both signed-off on.

"To the best of our knowledge those modifications were not made. I've asked John Furlong directly several times, this last interview I asked him seven times."

Death at the Olympics includes interviews with outspoken American luger Tony Benshoof and Patrick Singleton, a luger from Bermuda, whose Bermuda shorts are on display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

Be warned, the documentary includes footage of the crash and some of the grisly aftermath. The sound of Kumaritashvili striking an unpadded pole still makes me shiver. But McKeown said it is necessary to tell the story.

"That's one of those calls, I fully understand people that say why do we have to watch this again, we only show it in action once and otherwise we rely on the stills to do it," McKeown said. "But to understand what happened, how it happened and the role the track played you really have to see that unfortunately."

Reality check: Coroner doesn't play blame game

Vancouver 2010 will forever be known for the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old Georgian luger who flew off the Whistler Sliding Centre track near the end of his final training run on the opening day of the Games.

The track was faster than it should have been, but it was marketed as the world's most extreme. Until the Feb. 12, 2010 tragedy.

VANOC CEO John Furlong revealed in his memoir, Patriot Hearts, that Kumaritashvili's family was to receive $150,000 from an insurance policy. Before the payment was made, Furlong traveled to the funeral in Georgia and brought with him the euro equivalent of $25,000 in cash. That was the proceeds from a VANOC podium auction.

Near the end of the book, however, Furlong makes a key error in reference to the British Columbia Coroners Service investigation. Coroner Tom Pawlowski, not Chief Coroner Diane Rothon, ruled the death accidental. Read the report here.


What does Furlong say on page 325?

"The chief coroner of B.C. has handed down his report and found no blame…"

The B.C. Coroners Service website says:

The Coroners Service is a fact-finding, not a fault-finding agency that provides an independent service to the family, community, government agencies and other organizations. The Coroners Act and Regulation governs the coroner's scope of activity.

Blame game not over

The much-anticipated report into the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili from the International Luge Federation was published at 3 a.m. Vancouver time on April 19.

Yeah, I woke up to be among the first to read it and write about it. Reporters who remained asleep didn't miss much. Maybe I was expecting too much from a typical European-based sports federation in self-preservation mode.

The 20-page document has few new revelations, no diagrams and no definitive timeline. (Note to FIL: a timeline should contain times. Your page 16 doesn't.) There is a photograph of Kumaritashvili on page 3 and kind words about the 21-year-old who died on the opening day of the 21st Winter Games. It details the donations to Kumaritashvili's family and does say that the family continues to wait for the VANOC insurance payment.

FIL continues to blame "driver error" and it describes how Kumaritashvili died. But it doesn't describe the why.

Tacked onto the story in the Telegraph by its Olympics editor Jacquelin Magnay is a fact box containing five unanswered questions.

Five unanswered questions
- Why was the steel pillar positioned directly next to the track and alongside a turn previously identified as dangerous?
- Why was the steel pillar unprotected without padding?
- Why wasn’t the track modified in the year before the Olympic Games when athletes had officially complained about the dangers?
- Why weren’t international sliders given more official practice time in the months leading up to the Games?
- Why did the International officials approve the track when excessive speed had already been identified as a problem?

Will the British Columbia Coroners Service enlighten us when it reports next month? Or will we have to wait for VANOC and FIL executives to testify in a Coroner's inquest or B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit?

This story is not over. As long as these questions remain, the sport of luge, the Whistler Sliding Centre and VANOC will live under a black cloud.

Furlong: "We had tested for everything, this was not one of those things."

The mere mention of Nodar Kumaritashvili still makes me cry on the inside. It hit me hard Feb. 12 when I heard there had been a crash at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

It was an already busy day. The Olympic torch relay was in downtown Vancouver, blocked by protesters. Military helicopters and fighter jets buzzed overhead in the hours before the opening ceremony at B.C. Place Stadium, the focal point for world sport.

Just minutes after the crash bulletin hit the news wires, I found the shocking replay video that someone uploaded to YouTube. At best, I thought, he would be paralyzed. He must have been aware of the risks, but he was among the top 50 in the world and was skilled enough to be allowed on the track. The most extreme track in the world, but one the International Luge Federation had deemed safe.

Then CKNW broke the news at the top of its noon newscast, according to a report from Sun Media: A 21-year-old had died on the first day of the 21st Winter Olympics.

It made the clouds hanging over Vancouver that much heavier. It was harder for me to work on the day I anticipated for almost seven years. The half-mast flag at city hall spoke volumes.

That night, the march into B.C. Place Stadium by the Georgian team -- wearing black armbands, sullen faces and the weight of grief on their shoulders -- was greeted with standing ovations. Even the media stood and clapped. Most of us rarely do that.

At a news conference earlier that day, VANOC CEO John Furlong said: “We are heartbroken beyond words to be sitting here. I am so sorry to be in this position, to be reporting this to you. It's not something that I have prepared for, that I ever thought I would need to be prepared for.”

On April 16, during his farewell speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Furlong said “We had tested for everything, this was not one of those things. We tested for every conceivable thing that could happen to us so that we could know what to do if it happened during the Games.”

I regret, for fear of being callous, not challenging Furlong on that statement after the Board of Trade speech. I know it's easy for me to criticize. I didn't have to stand before the world on Feb. 12 like Furlong did. Furlong helped carry Kumaritashvili's coffin at a Feb. 15 funeral in Vancouver and he went to Georgia after the Paralympics to be with Kumaritashvili's heartbroken family. All noble gestures. Not one was easy or without emotion.

It is simply inconceivable that the potential for an athlete death at such a large event featuring such dangerous sports was never considered. If the risk had never been discussed at a VANOC executive planning meeting, then someone was not doing his or her job.

Even bigger risks with much less likelihood were on the minds of VANOC partners.

The Canadian government spent $900 million on security and public safety for the Vancouver Olympics and that budget included funds for the RCMP and Canadian Forces to practice nuclear and chemical bomb scenarios. It also included fake newscasts organized by Public Safety Canada!

Yes, I know about Munich 1972 and Atlanta 1996, but I’m not aware of a single terrorist-caused death at any Winter Games.

There were, however, at least four fatalities involving athletes and officials at Winter Games before Vancouver.

Tragedy struck twice at Innsbruck 1964. Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski of Great Britain died in the Olympic luge track at Igls, Austria two weeks before opening. Skier Ross Milne of Australia crashed in a practice for the men’s downhill.

At Calgary 1988, Austrian surgeon Jorg Oberhammer fell under a snow grooming machine after colliding with another skier. Shocked Olympians Pirmin Zurbriggen and Martin Hangl witnessed from the chairlift above.

At Albertville 1992, Swiss speedskater Nicholas Bochatay ran into a snowcat while skiing outside the competition area. Three weeks before Lillehammer 1994, Ulrike Maier of Austria was killed at the world cup race in Garmisch-Partenkirschen.

Every time I visited the Whistler Sliding Centre for sliding sports’ training sessions or competitions, there was always a pair of B.C. Ambulance Service ambulances with four paramedics at the ready. This didn’t sit well with members of their union, who were fighting for a new collective bargaining agreement.

The Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine met in Vancouver at the Westin Bayshore June 3-7, 2009. Before the convention, 48 doctors from across the country participated in a simulated bobsled crash at the Justice Institute of B.C. in New Westminster. The exercise scenario involved the aftermath of a four-man bobsled flying off the track and into the grandstand. Members of the Games-time medical team not only had experience working at sliding sports events, but also motorsports races. Just as athletes knew the risks, the doctors knew the grisly results of the worst accidents.

Longtime Vancouverites remember the tragic death of Maple Ridge CART driver Greg Moore in the last race of the 1999 season at Fontana, Calif., and the 1990 death of Molson Indy Vancouver track worker Jean Patrick Hein. Hein was struck by the car of Willy T. Ribbs at a chicane near B.C. Place Stadium.

VANOC had insurance policies for Olympic participants, to protect against serious injury and death claims. One such policy will compensate Kumaritashvili’s parents.

It also seems inconceivable that VANOC’s communications department had not considered a fatality.
VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade’s previous career was a communications executive with Air Canada.

Canadian carriers have been involved in relatively few tragedies, but Canadians have had front-row seats to some of the most famous air disasters. Sikh terrorists killed 329 people in the 1985 Air India flight 182 that blew-up off the coast of Ireland. The flight originated in Montreal. Swissair flight 111 crashed near Halifax in 1998 when faulty wiring started an onboard fire, killing 229.

A company as big as Air Canada with so much at stake must’ve had a crisis communications plan ready if and when the unthinkable happened.

* * * * *

I write this in anticipation of the April 19 release of an IOC-ordered report by the International Luge Federation. The report is supposed to spread the blame because FIL says there is no single cause.

That seems to be an aboutface from Feb. 13 when the IOC, FIL and VANOC rushed to blame the athlete. They refused to criticize the fastest track in the world, the quality of maintenance or the booking policies that gave preference to Canadian athletes.

Georgia's President, Mikheil Saakashvili said it best at a Vancouver news conference.

"I've heard remarks from the international (luge) federation that what happened was because of human error," Saakashvili said. "I don't claim to know the technical details, but one thing that I know for sure is that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death."

Blogger Phil Butler has a keen eye. A reader of his noticed something unusual on the video replay of Kumaritashvili’s last run. Could Kumaritashvili have been distracted?

“The initial supposed investigation pointed out that Nodar made a critical error going into turn 16, but they failed to mention workers wagging poles in the luger’s line of site just before he entered the shadows under their constructions.”

The Quotes of the Games

Ten quotes that said it all about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. The agony of defeat. The thrill of victory. The tragedy. The weather. In no particular order...

"What is next? I don't know. Sleep, and then take on the world."
Two-time United States' halfpipe snowboarding gold medallist Shaun White on his next move.

"NASCAR, Motocross and bull-riding."
How Daron Rahlves of the U.S. describes skicross.

"Basically all four years lead to one second that can screw you all up."
Canadian ski jumper Stefan Read on failing to qualify for the main competition.

"I think we have all seen two days ago how difficult the sport is, how close victory and failure and disaster is together. So it's so sad, such a sad situation about all what happened. It's just bursting my heart." - Three-time luge gold medallist and German coach Georg Hackl on the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a Feb. 12 training crash.

"We have 80,000 girls playing hockey in Canada, we have around 60,000 in the United States, and we have 267 girls playing in Slovakia. If 80,000 girls are playing 267, that's the 18-0." - International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel on the state of women's hockey.

"Hockey is not a sport in Canada. It's a cult."
U.S. men's hockey general manager Brian Burke on Canadians' attachment to hockey.

"The team has been building something out of something that keeps disappearing. The snow, we bring it in and the warm weather it comes and it disappears. We bring it in and the wind comes and it disappears." - Renee Smith-Valade on the rescue of Cypress Mountain's freestyle skiing and snowboarding venues.

"If I could have done this job with a paper bag over my head I probably would have."
VANOC CEO John Furlong on being a public figure.

"There are no rules against the pants, but there may be after this."
Norwegian curler Christoffer Svae on the legality of his team's blue, grey, white and red diamond golf-style pants.

"My legs were feeling like someone injected them with gravy."
Super combined alpine skiing gold medallist Bode Miller of the U.S. on how he felt before the slalom race.