Almost a year ago, the Canadian (Sarajevo-born) athlete Nik Zoricic was killed in a ski-cross event at Grindelwald, Switzerland, when he veered off-course and crashed ...
This has resulted in a Swiss criminal investigation, provisionally describing Zoricic's death as a "tragic accident". Zoricic's family are unhappy with the investigation. The Globe and Mail reports ...
The family is now reportedly threatening a lawsuit against the FIS and Alpine Canada " if they refuse to launch an independent investigation into his death by mid-June."
Any views on the issues raised here?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I still have exactly same opinion as last year when it happened... it is tragic accident but it was caused by negligence. Main reason why I think so is background of all this... ski cross is relatively young sport, so on one side you could say they don't have experience with this, and it really was just tragic accident. But if you look better, thing is, everyone involved in this, from racers, officials to organizers came from alpine skiing, where they have A LOT of experience dealing with such things. So they should know a whole lot better then this, and they should know you don't have piles of snow, houses, fences etc. just under jump. So yes, he missed the line, and it was his fault, but course should be designed so, that when you miss line and crash, you stand up and walk away, or you have your leg broken in worse case, not that result of wrong line is death. In my opinion investigation should answer to following questions. Why there was no protection in that area? Why piles of snow and fences were so close to course and jump landing? Who is responsible that course was designed so badly? Based on this what I know, they didn't answer single of these question.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Three skiers coming into the final jump to win the race.
Skier 2 slipstreaming skier 1 and skier 3 slipstreaming skiers 2 and 1.
Skiers 2 and 3 attempting to pass skier 1 in the air by coming out of the slipstream.
Skier 2 drifts right of skier 1 and manages the acceleration and lands the jump.
Skier 3 becomes imbalanced in the air and goes over the handlebars on the landing resulting in impact death,
Condolences to the family, but to my eyes this was skier error resulting in death by impact.
It looks like the 2nd place skier has to swerve to miss the finishing poles. They look massively dangerous in themselves as the racers cannot see the landing area on approach. All seem to hit the ramp fairly central but all finish well to the right. Hideously dangerous to a novice like me.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
primoz, I might be getting nit picking, but you can't have an accident that's both his fault yet caused by someone elses negligence.
I agree that it was an accident and that it was caused by him missing the line. The negligence argument covers the level of injury he sustained following the accident taking place and whether proper safety measures existed to try and prevent those injuries.
Skier 3 becomes imbalanced in the air and goes over the handlebars on the landing resulting in impact death,
I'm no expert but I disagree, he landed fine then got pitched forward due to the "crud" as the lawyer called it.
Mosha Marc, I agree it's the Negligence of what happens if it goes wrong i.e. A poor or no risk assessment carried out.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Mosha Marc, agree, but as I have said many times, my English is far from perfect, so I might understand term "tragic accident" a bit different way then it probably really is in proper English.
Mike Pow, yes, he did miss the line, but once again.... "punishment" for missing line in ski race is disqualification not death.
Besides... Nik didn't really miss line much... problem is whole landing was constructed wrong and obviously course designer had no idea what real line is. All 3 "missed the line", since all 3 landed outside of landing zone, Del Bosco just on right edge of landing zone, second one way out of "official" landing zone, and Nik way way out, even though her went pretty much straight line down to finish. And in skiing thing is you can't control landing with painting landing zone, but completely the other way... in this case they painted landing zone in totally wrong place and obviously decided that's good enough and skiers will go completely other way just to land inside of blue lines.
After all it is free
After all it is free
primoz, sorry. I'd forgotten that English wasn't your first language.
It's still better than mine though
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
The jump seemed to suggest they would have to turn in mid air to get back into the marked course.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Surely that course was poorly designed.
Not only did the proper negotiation of the jump cause all the racers to land far to one side of the course, but the 'run-off' area and/or the safety fence proved to be obviously inadequate to prevent a serious outcome from occuring should something go wrong.
In my opinion the race organisers must take the blame.
In my opinion, ski-cross and boarder-cross are two of the most exciting competitions to watch, and far more enjoyable than any competition where the race is purely against the clock. The participants need to be able to compete in a safe-as-possible environment to ensure they can compete to their best ability.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Mosha Marc wrote:
primoz, I might be getting nit picking, but you can't have an accident that's both his fault yet caused by someone elses negligence.
The accident wasn't caused by somebody else's negligence.
The severity of the result very probably was.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
You would really need to see the course marking above the jump. It could have been marked further to skiers left, but they decided to go for a tighter line. Is there a regulation for the width of the jump? From the angle shown, the second skier was very lucky to avoid the finishing post. No real reason to build a wide ramp with no landing zone if there isn't a regulation to say it must have a minimum width.
Would also be useful to see other heats to determine if this was a fluke of the line the first skier took while the other two were slip streaming, or if they all landed on the edge of the course in other heats as well
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
This was a tragic incident; and potentially preventable, by havign a safer jump zone that doesn't naturally have skiers skiing off the edge of the jump and by making sure the potnetial landing zone is safe.
The Zoricics don't want retribution or any criminal findings, they simply want people to learn from the lessons so the sport is safer going forward.
It seems to me that people don't learn safety lessons unless incidents are dismanteled and lessons learned. Thats how we operate in construction.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Mosha Marc wrote:
primoz, I might be getting nit picking, but you can't have an accident that's both his fault yet caused by someone elses negligence.
Yes you can - or at least you can in England where the law recognises that accidents may result from a number of different causes so that liability rests both with a third party and also with the claimant him/herself (the latter's fault being called "contributory negligence").
It is important not to conflate two distinct concepts, even if they might overlap. The first is whether Nik was killed as a result of someone's negligence. The second is identifying lessons which might help prevent a recurrence in the future. The mere fact that it might - by reference to this accident - be possible to identify steps to prevent a recurrence does not mean that Nik's death was caused by negligence since the existence of negligence has to be determined by reference to what the reasonably competent course designer should have appreciated at the time, not what the reasonably competent course designer would now appreciate with the advantage of knowing about Nik's accident.
The family's aim seems to be to prevent a recurrence rather than establish fault against the original course designer. If that is right, then it is possible that the lawyer's presentation makes some valid points (although it is hard to tell without the benefit of seeing the actual course at first hand or having an overhead shot). The landing area was certainly tight in terms of the gap between the fence and the downhill side of the ramp. Whether better grooming would have made a difference in such a constricted space seems pretty speculative to me. Parallel (or slightly converging) blue lines in the direction of travel on the approach to the jump might have discouraged the skiers from getting too far to the right. I assume the skiers "walked" the course in advance so that they could identify the lines they needed to take in order to be safe.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
There's apparently some other important video evidence, captured by a helmet cam on one of the other racers.
CBC (the Canadian broadcaster) recently transmitted a documentary about the accident, which apparently included this footage. But the iink ...
On this CBC link you have on right "Watch footage from practice run", and you can see how totally off was landing on last run. I never saw this footage (it's helmet cam footage of whole run), so I had not much of idea how course went prior this jump, but from this one, you have to be blind not to see it was totally wrong designed landing and surrounding of the landing. Course went straight down to jump, and landing was moved 5m off line to left... Even on this training, one guy jumps almost into b-netting, and he went perfectly fine line.
So I actually take back that what I said about Nik picking wrong line... he went perfectly fine (straight) line and ended in crud and b-netting...
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
primoz wrote:
On this CBC link you have on right "Watch footage from practice run", and you can see how totally off was landing on last run. I never saw this footage (it's helmet cam footage of whole run), so I had not much of idea how course went prior this jump, but from this one, you have to be blind not to see it was totally wrong designed landing and surrounding of the landing. Course went straight down to jump, and landing was moved 5m off line to left... Even on this training, one guy jumps almost into b-netting, and he went perfectly fine line.
So I actually take back that what I said about Nik picking wrong line... he went perfectly fine (straight) line and ended in crud and b-netting...
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
primoz, yes one racer takes off on the left and lands in the middle, another just left of centre and lands well to the right and the third as you say nearly hits the net.
They are all mad of course.
all the video is avalaible to me (in canada) so I suspect its something to do with your IP addresses
About 25 mins of the programme are about this, the rest about the Whistler Luge, where there appears to be a similarish story
Its pretty much as described with lots of footage of parents, lawyer, interviews with team mates and other skiers, Joey (the FIS guy) and criticisms of the police report, for which only two of the 90 atheletes were interviewed.
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