Russian Olympic luge veteran Albert Demchenko said after his disappointing fourth in Vancouver that he would take part in the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 with his eldest daughter, Viktoria.
"To be honest, for Sochi I'll be getting ready in an expanded fashion - I hope that by this time my daughter will have caught up [with me], and we will go together to compete in Sochi," the 38-year-old told reporters after the luge competition at the Olympic track in Whistler.
Demchenko said his 14-year-old daughter is already showing the potential to compete in international sliding competitions.
"She has had a little success. Let's hope it grows into something big," he said.
Should Demchenko compete in Sochi it would be his seventh Games, dating back to Albertville in France in 1992, when the recently deceased Soviet Union sent a "Unified Team." His best finish was silver in Turin four years ago, and he missed out on a medal this time by three-hundredths of a second.
Demchenko said the Vancouver Olympics would forever be remembered for the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, and he laid part of the blame for the death of the Georgian slider on the organizers.
"Nodar will always be remembered. We trained together for the past two or three years on almost all the tracks, and lived next to each other in the hotels. I am well acquainted with his uncle, Tommaso Kumaritashvili, the coach of the Soviet Union," Demchenko said.
He went on to question why tents shading the track from the winter sun had been left up for athletes' runs, contrasting the practice to that of previous Games.
"At the last run, for unknown reasons the covers were closed, which has been never done on any Olympic track because it is dangerous. There are enough volunteers to put them at every cover, so they can be raised and lowered on a sunny day, like in Nagano, Turin, Salt Lake City," the Russian slider said.
Experts from the International Luge Federation concluded on Friday that there was nothing wrong with the track, saying that Kumaritashvili failed to correct his line after a bad exit from the previous turn.
Kumaritashvili died on Friday after coming off the track near the end of the run and flying into a metal pole at 140 km/h (90 mph).
WHISTLER, February 15 (RIA Novosti)
