Polish luger Mateusz Sochowicz cut his leg deeply when he hit a barrier on the track for the next 2022 Beijing Olympics and denounced the incompetence of the staff on Tuesday. Sochowicz, 25, participated in official training sessions supervised by the International Luge Federation (FIL) to allow sledgers to discover the Yanqing track, built especially for the 2022 Olympics (4-20 Feb).
“It could have ended tragically”
The accident took place at the level where the longer men’s track meets the start of the women’s track, located below. He hit the barrier that separates the two tracks. “On this track, the first two corners are a big problem. I was given the green light to go, so I left and for the first time, I managed to negotiate these first two corners well, ”he told the Polish news site. Onet.
“Suddenly I saw a barrier in front of me in the middle of the track, got out of my sled and curled up in the position of a descender,” continued Sochowicz. By hitting the barrier, he injured his left knee and deeply cut his right leg: “If I had not reacted, it could have ended tragically,” he said.
Trauma for the Games
“After the impact, I looked at my leg and I saw my bone, I was in shock”, explained the sledger who regretted the slowness of the rescue, not joining the hospital until an hour later. his accident. “The track team turned out to be very incompetent, they had no idea what to do. A person came and wanted to touch my injury with his glove, it was a dantesque scene ”, regretted Sochowicz who had finished 27th in the luge event of the 2018 Olympics.
Sochowicz, 20th in the 2020-21 World Cup, however, does not give up on the 2022 Olympics. “I hope to be there, if the FIL gives me an invitation to allow me to focus on my recovery. But I don’t know if I could mentally recover. If I find myself on this track, I don’t know if I wouldn’t be afraid that something would happen to me when I came out of a bend, ”he admitted. During the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, a Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in training by going off the track and hitting a pole at 140 km / h.