- 4 hours ago
Behind the glory and spectacle lie moments that shook the Olympic world to its core. Join us as we explore the darkest chapters in Winter Olympic history, where triumph turned to tragedy and the human cost of athletic pursuit was paid in full. Our countdown includes Nodar Kumaritashvili, Nancy Kerrigan, Joannie Rochette, and more heartbreaking stories that remind us what's truly at stake.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00sorry it's a bit difficult to to remain composed this is a very sad day welcome to watch mojo
00:08and today we're exploring the darkest moments in winter olympics history events involving
00:14heartbreaking loss devastating injuries and the unforeseen human cost of athletic pursuit
00:20when i took my starting position i had no more legs and i think the last thought that
00:24went through my mind was oh my god how am i going to do this like i don't feel great
00:28at all
00:30jurg oberhammer not every olympic tragedy happens under stadium lights at the 1988 calgary winter
00:38olympics austrian team doctor jurg oberhammer was on a slope near nakiska when a collision with
00:45another skier sent him into the path of a snow grooming machine he was fatally injured and the
00:51games suddenly felt a lot less like a celebration and a lot more like a warning it wasn't a death
00:57tied to a medal event or a headline race but it was absolutely tied to the olympic environment
01:03and that's what makes it so unsettling even outside competition even in moments that feel routine
01:09the risks don't politely disappear the mountains don't care why you're there they only care that
01:16you are there dan jansen we have a good start jansen inside kuralea of japan 22 years old on the
01:23outside look at jansen's technique skates very low his skates always come underneath his body good 100
01:30meter time oh he falls down oh no both of them have fallen down i don't believe it this is
01:37the kind of
01:37pain that turns sport into something almost unbearable to watch at the 1988 calgary games
01:43american speed skater dan jansen learned that his sister jane had died from leukemia on the day of
01:50his race he still stepped onto the ice and in the 500 meter he fell bad break for jansen coro
01:57iwa will
01:58get a chance to skate again but this has to be very disappointing well you talk about concentration eric
02:05you've been in this sport you know how hard it is and what this guy's been battling all day long
02:10days later in the 1000 meter he fell again the footage is brutal because it isn't just athletic
02:17failure it's grief taking physical form in real time jansen eventually got his redemption with olympic
02:24gold at lillehammer 1994 but calgary remains the chapter people remember first because in that moment
02:31the olympics didn't feel like a dream it felt like a nightmare coming off a false start and then
02:37you know having to concentrate on i'm getting a good clean start it may have really been a big
02:41distraction kai jimertz kai shepetsky the world watched as records fell at oslo san moritz lake placid
02:50scraw valley and now high in the austrian alps we take you to innsbruck and the ninth winter olympic games
02:57luge entered the olympic program at innsbruck 1964 and the sports olympic story began with a
03:04tragedy kai jimertz kai shepetsky a luger representing great britain suffered severe injuries during a
03:12training run for the first olympic luge competition the trauma was devastating and he died the next day
03:19helmets weren't required safety walls were low and the sled steered like shopping carts on ice it's
03:25hardly a surprise then that kashmir's lost control in the middle of one of his runs flew out of the
03:29sled and hit a support post head first it's the kind of loss that hits differently because it happens
03:34before the athlete ever truly gets their moment no race no redemption no at least he competed just a
03:42dream that ends on a track before the games even properly begin innsbruck went forward but the tone
03:48changed from the start luge made one thing brutally clear this sport offers no margin for error he died
03:55from massive internal injuries and became a pioneer in the sport in a much darker way the first athlete
04:01in olympic history to die in a luge accident nancy kerrigan tanya harding leaves a friend's apartment
04:06in beaverton without commenting on the figure skating association's decision a five-member panel looking
04:12into harding's role in the attack on rival skater nancy kerrigan unanimously decided there is evidence
04:18harding may have violated the association's ethics code figure skating is supposed to be elegance and
04:24control and then in january 1994 it turned into a crime scene after a practice session at the u.s
04:32figure
04:32skating championships in detroit nancy kerrigan was attacked by shane stant who struck her knee with a
04:38baton the scheme was orchestrated by figures around rival tanya harding with harding's then husband
04:44jeff galluli and associate sean eckert central to arranging it according to attorney ron hovitt
04:51after the fbi showed jeff 46 pages of notes he finally realized she had implicated him and was not
04:57sticking to their cover story it was then hovitt said when he started telling investigators the truth
05:03about how much tanya knew jeff galluli's brother john said it was extremely hard for jeff to learn
05:09that tanya had given him up to the authorities kerrigan's anguished why me became global shorthand
05:15for shock and betrayal she still made it to lillehammer 1994 and won silver but the scandal swallowed the
05:22whole sport for weeks the olympics weren't just about medals they were about motive damage and how far
05:29people will go to win i feel really bad for what happened i feel really fortunate that it wasn't me
05:36you know but i have had my hopes up for you know the longest time now competing against nancy and
05:43and proving to everybody that i am as good as her and better and i didn't get that chance but
05:49i will
05:49get that chance at olympics and i will prove to everyone that i am number one nicola beauchate but in
05:56speed skiing there is 50 percent of the performance which is for the athlete and 50 percent which is
06:04for the the materials so for me it's absolutely necessary to to make all these research all these
06:12numbers may add up to more and more speed but they also add up to more and more danger the
06:18most
06:18terrifying olympic tragedies are sometimes the ones that happen when the cameras aren't looking
06:23at the 1992 albertville winter olympics swiss speed skier nicolas beauchate competed in the speed
06:31skiing demonstration event later while skiing on the same mountain he collided with a snow grooming
06:36machine and was killed when i watched some of my friends over 200 kilometers per hour and it was
06:46it was terrible for me to see that i don't want to watch too much speed skiing because i could
06:53be
06:53afraid after that it wasn't a medal event moment but it was absolutely olympics linked and it forced a
06:59hard look at what safe really means at an olympic venue athletes are moving constantly training warming up
07:06traveling between areas finding rhythm the danger doesn't clock out just because the official
07:11competition window is closed beauchate's death is remembered because it feels so senseless and
07:17because it proved the risk doesn't always arrive with warning that speed trap is about roughly the
07:22length of a football field takes them 1.7 seconds to get across that can you imagine seeing somebody go
07:28across a football field that quickly nodar kumar itashvili it should have been a day of festivities
07:34but just hours before the opening ceremony of the vancouver games a devastating blow it is with great
07:41regret that we confirm the death of the georgian luge athlete nodar kumar itashvili during the final
07:48training session at the whistler sliding center this morning the 2010 vancouver games opened under a
07:54cloud that never fully lifted during a training run at whistler hours before the opening ceremony
08:00georgian luger nodar kumar itashvili lost control was thrown from his sled and struck an unpadded
08:07steel support pole he died shortly after if they didn't make mistakes with the tracks
08:14why did they lower the height of the starting point
08:21why did they make the modifications and lower the men's starting point by about 200 meters to the height of
08:27the women's starting point the whistler track was known for extreme speed and technical demands
08:32and his death triggered immediate action changes to the ice profile adjustments to start positions
08:38and a painful reassessment of safety practices it remains one of the most haunting reminders
08:44that olympic spectacle can carry a lethal price and that sometimes the line is crossed before anyone
08:49admits it exists the ioc is in deep mourning here you have a young athlete who lost his life in
08:58pursuing
08:59his passion he had a dream to participate in the olympic games he trained hard and he had this fatal
09:06accident i have no words to say what we feel joannie rachette my mom passed away two days before
09:14uh my short program at the olympics she had just arrived in vancouver um i was supposed to have
09:20dinner with her that night but i was pretty tired so i i pushed it back to the next night
09:25no matter how
09:26much we planned uh for those olympics i could never have planned that my mom would pass away few olympic
09:32moments feel as raw as joannie rachette's at vancouver 2010. just after arriving for a home country games
09:39rachette's mother therese suffered a massive heart attack and died in vancouver at age 55
09:45only two days before the women's short program rachette chose to compete anyway and what followed
09:52was astonishing she delivered a personal best short program score that put her in third then held on
09:58through the free skate to win bronze i had um visualized that moment for a long time but with
10:04the people in there it felt so different the energy that was in that building felt um just
10:10amazing it felt like home it was grief in motion the kind of performance that stops being sports
10:16and becomes something closer to witness and tribute in the end rachette's courage was recognized when
10:22she received the inaugural vancouver 2010 terry fox award shared with petra madich it was just a little
10:29bit weird that uh the person who shared that dream with me who had been along the way for all
10:35those
10:36years supporting me in the ups and downs so that's the person that i wanted to share that medal with
10:40to show it to her and it just felt really weird that she wasn't there but i knew she was
10:46somewhere
10:47watching before we continue be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about
10:52our latest videos you have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them
10:58if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications
11:03ross milne open and shut case right just a kid from the outback on the wrong continent going too fast
11:09well not so fast at innsbruck 1964 australia arrived with a small delegation and big dreams
11:17then got hit with a nightmare teenage australian alpine skier ross milne was entered in the olympic
11:24downhill but during a training run at patrick hofel he lost control and struck a tree at high speed
11:31suffering a fatal head injury witnesses said the course was totally mismanaged and way too crowded
11:37to be practicing on there were over a hundred skiers on it at once people standing in the middle of
11:42turns
11:42and some literally walking across the track the timing made it even more brutal it came just days after
11:48the death of kai shepetsky meaning tragedy was already stalking the games before the opening ceremony
11:55for australia it was devastating a young athlete gone before he ever got to truly compete innsbruck
12:02became a grim reminder that in winter sport the cost can be absolute one racer called it a slaughter
12:08waiting to happen so maybe it wasn't ross's inexperience at all then as if to prove him right
12:13tragedy struck again the very next day what do you think is the most shocking winter olympics tragedy
12:19are there any we missed let us know in the comments
Comments