The picture shows Nodar Kumaritashvili crashing during the men's Luge practice in preparation for the Vancouver Winter Games on February 12, 2010. Photo: AFP

Organizers of last year's Winter Olympic Games warned almost one year before Nodar Kumaritashvili died that athletes could be "badly injured or worse" on the track and that they could get the blame, a report said February 7.

Games organizing committee chief executive John Furlong said in a March 2009 email obtained by public broadcaster CBC that the International Luge Federation (FIL) had warned "that the track is in their view too fast and someone could get badly hurt."

"An athlete gets badly injured or worse and I think the case could be made we were warned and did nothing," he added, referring to a copy of a letter from the FIL to the track's designer expressing concern over high speeds on the track.

FIL president Josef Fendt had noted speeds up to 20 kilometers per hour faster than the track designer had projected.

"Most of the athletes were able to cope with these extremely high speeds," Fendt wrote to IBG Designs in Germany. "Nevertheless, overstepping this limit would be an absolute unreasonable demand for the athletes. This causes me great worry."

CBC said Furlong asked lawyers to look into it and Tim Gayda, organizing committee vice president for sport, replied, "I don't believe there is anything to do."

Kumaritashvili, 21, died hours before the February 12 opening of the Winter Games in Vancouver when his sled hurtled off the luge track at Whistler and slammed into a steel pillar, throwing a pall over the start of the event.

A coroner's report noted that the president of the FIL had expressed concerns to Canadian officials one year before the Games regarding speed hazards at the luge track.

Vancouver Games organizers found in their own inquiry that the notoriously high-speed track – later modified and shortened – was not at fault, blaming driver error instead.

Furlong told CBC February 7, "My concern was, are we doing everything that we need to do? And when I spoke to our team, spoke with the sport, and spoke with everybody involved, the feeling was that we were doing exactly what our responsibilities demand we do."

He noted that the organizing committee was "not an expert in these areas" and that it relied on sports officials' assessment of the track.

Canada's Minister of State for Sports Gary Lunn expressed support for Furlong, saying the email exchange revealed Furlong had done "additional due diligence" in the matter.