The ultimate sacrifice?
Post categories: Olympics, Winter Olympics, Women in sport
| 14:42 UK time, Thursday, 10 November 2011
"He left us doing what he loved to do".
The words of Clive Wheldon, father of IndyCar driver Dan, who died last month at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Dan Wheldon was just 33 years old.
But they could equally have been spoken about Marco Simoncelli, who died a week later at the Sepang MotoGP. Or Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, killed over one terrible weekend in San Marino in 1994.
Or Nodar Kumaritashvili, who lost his life in a training run for the luge competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
To reach the top at your sport demands incredible dedication and sacrifice - but should that sacrifice involve your own life?
I'm Eleanor Oldroyd and I present Thursday night's 5 live Sport, where we will increasingly be focusing on London 2012, which will be the sixth summer Olympic Games I've covered for the BBC. I love a great range of sports - from motorsport to modern pentathlon - and I'm looking forward to talking about most of them, on air and here on my blog.
