Extreme Park Crashes Taking Outsize Toll on Women

New York Times ^ | February 18, 2014 | JOHN BRANCH

[reaganaut1]

...

Through Monday night, a review of the events at the Extreme Park counted at least 22 accidents that either forced athletes out of the competition or, if on their final run, required medical attention. Of those, 16 involved women. The injury rate is higher when considering that the men’s fields are generally larger.

The question, a difficult one, is why.

The Winter Games have always had dangerous events. But the Extreme Park, as the name suggests, is built on the ageless allure of danger. All of the events there have been added to the Olympic docket since 1992, each a tantalizing cocktail of grace and peril.

But unlike some of the time-honored sports of risk, including Alpine skiing, luge and ski jumping, there are few concessions made for women. For both sexes, the walls of the halfpipe are 22 feet tall. The slopestyle course has the same tricky rails and the same massive jumps. The course for ski cross and snowboard cross, a six-person race to the finish over jumps and around icy banked curves, is the same for men and women. The jumps for aerials are the same height. The bumps in moguls play no gender favorites.

“Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men,” said Kim Lamarre of Canada, the bronze medalist in slopestyle skiing, where the competition was delayed a few times by spectacular falls. “I think they could do more to make it safer for women.”

Compare the sports with downhill skiing, in which women have their own course, one that is shorter and less difficult to navigate. Or luge, in which female sliders start lower on the track than the men.

[Secret Agent Man]

Equality. Women are equal until they demand unequal special treatment.

Note if a man brought this up saying we have to protect these little waify women from courses too difficult for them to handle,

guess how that would be taken.

Point is, men saying this would be slammed for paternalism and sexism. The other point is I thought women could do physical things equal or better than guys. These are the top female athletes in the world, no less.

[eldoradude]

I have an idea. Why don't they leave all of those athletes off in Siberia with a GPS and guns or knives for hunting, let them choose skis or skates or sleds, and make it a survival game. Everyone who gets to Sochi alive gets a medal and an interview with the NBC interviewer of their choice.

I like it. Extreme Olympics...although instead of leaving the NBC interviewers in Sochi they should go with the athletes, and the ones who make it back get to be on TV for the next 4 years.

[WellyP]

“Park” is making ski racing at all levels look tame!