Sudden death in the sports world
By Paul Breschuk
Features Editor
March 3, 2010
 Ayrton Senna, whom many believed to be the best driver in Formula 1 history, was best known for his incomparable bravery in the cockpit of a race car. “On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit,” once explained Senna. “And you then go for this limit and after you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further.”
This limit, like an invisible training partner, was always being tested by Senna. Whether it was with the qualifying laps of countless pole positions, or the otherworldly confidence he displayed in wet race conditions, Senna was constantly pushing the boundaries of courage and physics.
On the night of April 30, 1994, the man who was believed to be fearless phoned his girlfriend, crying. From his hotel in Italy, on the eve of the San Marino Grand Prix, he confessed that he did not want to race.
Just hours prior, during a qualifying session at the Imola circuit, he had witnessed the deadly crash of Roland Ratzenberger. The 33-year-old Austrian was victim to the first Formula 1 death in eight years, slamming into a barrier while travelling over 300 km/h. In a tragic coincidence, the portion of track which claimed his life was named after Gilles Villeneuve, a Canadian who crashed to his death 12 years prior.
Senna, driving by the twisted wreckage of Ratzenberger’s car, could not have been aware of the next turn of fate that lay ahead. Yet, something about the Austrian’s death touched him more deeply than the other drivers. He was profoundly disturbed by the tragedy, shaken to the core.
After making impassioned pleas to race organizers, demanding improved safety conditions, Senna retreated to his hotel to collect himself.
There, while preparing for the next day’s race, ominous thoughts crept across his mind. He debated whether to participate or not, abstaining to honour Ratzenberger’s death. Could he have also been worried for his own life? Did he see a future version of himself in that crash, sitting lifeless in an unrecognizable heap of metal?
Less than 24 hours later, after leading the first five laps of the race, Senna’s mangled car rolled to a quiet rest off-course. His famous yellow helmet, quickly filling with blood, began to slump to one side as live TV broadcast the images around the world. Ayrton Senna, the Formula 1 triple World Champion, was dying.
He had, seconds earlier, struck the outside wall of Tamburello Corner, a long sweeping left-hander. The violent impact sent parts of the car into its driver, killing him shortly after.
An onsite tracheotomy was performed when the medical crew arrived. It was clear, however, that the man’s life was beyond salvageable.
He died from massive head trauma caused by impact with a tire as well as pieces of the wheel assembly which entered his helmet at unimaginable speeds.
During his years of winning races, it was the custom of the World Champion to wave a Brazilian flag during victory laps. Though, on the day of his death, at a race in which he was almost certain to win, an unfurled and bloodied Austrian flag was found on the cockpit floor. This aborted dedication to Ratzenberger’s death would be one of Senna’s last gestures.
Having its risks
Auto racing is not alone in its deaths. In fact, every sport, even some of the more mundane, has its risks.
“If you think about it, most sports are violent,” said Elliott Gorn, Professor of History at Brown University. “They result in many serious injuries and play at the edges of death. Boxing is nothing but violence, NASCAR and Formula 1 racing are filled with high-speed crashes, baseball players routinely duck balls thrown at 95 miles per hour, hockey players get into nasty fights, jockeys perch precariously atop a thousand pounds of muscle, and football players hit each other with bone-crunching force.”
Gorn contends that the idea behind such sports is not to kill the athletes. Naturally, however, the risk heightens the drama, making the viewing experience more rewarding.
Considering that entertainment to the ancient Romans meant gladiator and lion fights, the audience has come a long way. Though, despite a higher level of ethics replacing the thirst for blood, there still exists in us a slightly morbid sense of excitement when we see someone get hurt in sports.
The strong desire for the athlete or team to succeed can often lead to inhuman expectations and dangerous situations.
The Olympics, for example, have seen countries put heavy pressure on medal favourites to succeed. Canada, especially, has ramped up the expectations for athletes to “own the podium.” But, at what cost?
“One of the key issues is that we as fans enjoy seeing what the limits of human performance are and whether records can be broken,” said Dr. John Nauright, Director of the Academy of International Sport.
“We also want to see athletes pushed to the very edge of death but somehow escape like Houdini. Then we recoil when an athlete actually dies and look for someone or something to blame.”
This trend was clearly demonstrated in the recent death of Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili. Blame has been spread around from the luger, to the track design, and to Canada’s restriction of other countries’ training sessions.
While changes to the Vancouver sled track have been made for psychological reasons, Olympic officials contend that it was the inexperience of Kumaritashvili that lead to his demise. But could anything have been done to save this tragedy from happening? Perhaps sled sports will someday be held in completely enclosed tracks.
Safety measures
The tragic deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix caused the sport to undergo many subsequent changes. Safety revisions stemming directly from these deaths, including the redesigning of tracks and cars, have since ceased the trend of Formula 1 fatalities. To this date, no other deaths have occurred.
Unfortunately, other racing leagues have been less successful. For NASCAR, it took the 2001 death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. to implement the mandatory use of the HANS device (Head and Neck Support). This fiberglass device is worn like a collar around the neck and helmet of drivers, limiting head movement in order to combat deaths from basilar skull fractures.
In boxing, the death of Duk-Koo Kim in 1982, who fell into a coma shortly after a vicious knockout by Ray Mancini, prompted boxing officials to shorten the length of rounds from 15 to 12.
Almost like a call and response relationship, it has become a trend that deaths warrant changes in safety regulations. With advancements in physiology and the inventions of new safety devices, sports in general have become increasingly safe. Still, not every risk can be eliminated. Changes to rules and equipment can also indirectly worsen the situation.
“One of the great ironies of sports is that our efforts at safety often
backfire,” said Gorn. “Certainly, we have made auto racing safer. But the Marquis of Queensbury rules in boxing protected men’s hands so they could hit each other more frequently in the face, making long-term brain injury much more common. Football pads and helmets turn human bodies into missiles.”
Clearly, there are no perfect solutions. It seems that sports, or any type of physical activity for that matter, come with an inherent danger that should be respected by both athletes and fans. But, at some point, one must ask if such sports are worth the risk.
Can death be justified as the price of entertainment? Are dead athletes a type of martyr, dying for the sake of sport while living out our fantasies?
As far as professional sport is concerned, it must be looked upon as a highly paid, dangerous career. And during this career, many athletes have been known to say, “If I die, be happy with me. I died doing what I love.” How many factory workers or nine-to-five office ants can say the same thing? |
