The most dangerous Winter Olympic sports
, https://globalnews.ca/news/398...nter-olympic-sports/
Yuki Tsubota takes a hard fall during the women's freestyle finals at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park during the Sochi Winter Olympics February 11, 2014. -- John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail via CP images
More than one in 10 athletes at the last two Winter Olympics were injured at the Games, according to research studies by the International Olympic Committee. When it comes to those injuries, some sports are much more dangerous than others.
For example, nearly half of the athletes who competed in aerial freestyle skiing at Sochi reported some kind of injury. Unsurprisingly maybe, almost no cross-country skiers did.
The studies, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine after each Olympics, were relatively simple: researchers asked all countries’ national medical teams and the clinics in the athletes’ village to report every injury on a standard form. Any injury that was serious enough to warrant medical treatment was recorded, but they didn’t count pre-existing conditions. They recorded injuries incurred during both training and events.
Here’s what they learned.