SOCHI, Russia — The International Olympic Committee says a snowboarder can’t wear a sticker on her helmet to honor a skier who died in a training accident two years ago.
Mark Adams, an IOC spokeswoman, said Monday that Olympic competition is “in our opinion not the right place” for the commemoration.
Torah Bright, a snowboarder from Australia, planned to wear the sticker to honor Sarah Burke, who died after crashing on a halfpipe in Park City, Utah, in January 2012 and hitting her head.
“I ride with a Sarah sticker on my snowboard and helmet always,” Bright said on her Instagram account. “The IOC however, consider Sarah stickers ‘a political statement’ and have banned them. WOW.”
Adams said that Burke deserves to be “well-remembered,” and that the IOC would be happy to help if her friends wanted to have a press conference, or organize a memorial service for her.
“From our side we would say that the competitions themselves, which are a place of celebration, are probably not the right place, or in our opinion not the right place, to really do that and we like to keep that separate,” he said. “But we absolutely will support and want to help any kind of remembrance that the athletes particularly want to do.”
