Nodar Kumaritashvili

Nodar Kumaritashvili

Nodar Kumaritashvili (Georgian: ნოდარ ქუმარიტაშვილი; pronounced [nodaɾ kʰumaɾitʼaʃʷili]; 25 November 1988 – 12 February 2010) was a Georgian luge athlete who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony. He became the fourth athlete to die during preparations for a Winter Olympics, and the eighth athlete to die as a result of Olympic competition or during practice at their sport’s venue at an Olympic Games. Kumaritashvili, who first began to participate in luge when he was 13, came from a family of seasoned lugers: his grandfather had introduced the sport to Soviet Georgia, and both his father and uncle had competed when they were younger, with his uncle later serving as the head of the Georgian Luge Federation. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Nodar Kumaritashvili has received more than 926,097 page views. His biography is available in 40 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 37 in 2019). Nodar Kumaritashvili is the 1,504th most popular athlete (down from 1,216th in 2019), the 226th most popular biography from Georgia (down from 211th in 2019) and the 6th most popular Georgian Athlete.