For the next 17 days, that notice largely was ignored.
Instead of admitting culpability, the IOC and the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) blamed the 21-year-old Georgian for the accident that killed him. Not the track, which is the world's fastest; not their policy of limiting competitors' practice time before the games began.
It was the kid's fault.
Then, of course, they moved the luge start, altered the track and made safer the area where his body was thrown against unpadded supports.
Not their fault. No way.
And no matter.
Not as long as Canada's "Own the Podium" initiative became a success - a qualified success, perhaps, but undeniably, a success.
They began the $117 million investment 5 years ago in hopes of winning the most overall medals here. They claimed a victory by winning 14 gold medals, the most by any country in Winter Olympics history. The former USSR in 1976 and Norway in 2002 each won 13 golds.
Canada won 26 medals overall, also a national record, bettering its mark at Turin in 2006. No Canadian medal came sweeter than that of figure skater Joannie Rochette, whose mother died of a heart attack here 2 days before Rochette began her competition. Rochette soldiered on in her mother's memory and, on Thursday, took bronze, the only medal really up for competition, considering the top skaters in the field.
Then, the golds rained on Canada in a thrilling late rush. They went 1-2 in women's bobsled Wednesday night. They took women's hockey gold Thursday, and the team wound up creating more of a stir for suggestive photos snapped during a postgame, on-ice, beer-and-smokes celebration.
By hundredths of seconds, Canadians won two gold medals in men's short-track skating Friday night. Then came the Saturday swell: redemptive wins in men's curling, snowboarding, parallel giant slalom and men's long-track.
