Alpine Skiing: Skiing: a sport imbued with danger – AFP News : Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics
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Whistler (AFP) - Downhill skiing is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous sports to practise and the absence from the Olympic Winter Games of a number of top racers through injury has the sport's governing body worried.
In the speed events of the downhill and super-G in particular, the margin of error is tiny for skiers who put their trust into physical form and technical proficiency on the two skis strapped to their boot-clad feet.
Dressed only in figure-hugging catsuits and helmets, the skiing speed kings and queens hurtle down long, steep and icy slopes at speeds sometimes topping 140kph, with an altitude drop of around 800 metres.
The events are spectular, bone-rattling and danger-laden races which regularly feature gruesome crashes.
Missing from the Winter Games, during which the skiing events will take place here at Whistler, are a host of top-notch skiers.
They include Canada's own reigning world downhill champion John Kucera, reigning World Cup slalom champion Jean-Baptiste Grange of France and former women's World Cup winner Nicole Hosp of Austria.
That trio are but the tip of the injury iceberg, and alpine skiing's world governing body, the International Ski Federation (FIS), said the "significant number of injuries... is a cause of great concern".
What was even more frustrating, added FIS president Gian Franco Kasper, was that World Cup races are conducted with safety at the fore and that the type of injuries are varied.
The FIS established the Injury Surveillance System in 2006 to systematically collect facts and figures on injuries that happen to elite athletes across disciplines.
And Dr Roald Bahr, chair of the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center, the research partner for that surveillance system, argued that injury rates had not gone up in four seasons.
"The data from the first three seasons show that although the injury rate, especially the rate of serious knee injuries, is high, there has been no increase in injury rate since the surveillance was started in 2006," said Bahr.
"The injury rate has been stable, with about 40 time-loss injuries per 100 athletes every season in the alpine, snowboard and freestyle disciplines. The injury pattern also seems to be stable.
"The main concern is that every third injury is classified as severe; these are generally season-ending injuries, mainly to the knee."
Ski racing is a tough sport but the racers try not to be drawn on the fear factor, instead talking about "respect for the course".
Top German skier Maria Riesch admitted, however, that "fear is sometimes very present".
"Especially when something has happened again, as in the case of Niki Hosp. But as a ski racer, you have to be able to hide your fear, otherwise you cannot be fast any more."
British hope Chemmy Alcott added: "Ski racing is damned competitive at any time but in an Olympic season you're putting your body on the line as everyone looks to ski faster to win selection for the Games."
Alcott added that racers were not simply athletes with a "screw loose".
"We're adrenalin junkies and we are addicted to searching for speed that the average Joe, sat behind his desk, can't understand," she told the Daily Mail newspaper.
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