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Sledding athletes are taking their lives

nytimes.com

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Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#181

Post by partyboat1586 »

usgroup wrote: post #101
gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

I think the Olympics is just generally physically bad for the athletes. Runners, weightlifters, wrestlers, boxers, rowers, etc all these folks end up working so close o the edge of sustainable human tolerance and capacity that’s it’s unlikely they are not constantly going over it.

Not to the degree that there is a pattern of them committing suicide before 50. This sport seems particularly pernicious because it's a slow accumulated brain injury and because the sport normalises concussion which is taken very seriously in other sports.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#182

Post by partyboat1586 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #44

This is how the world is shaping up -- winner take all, but so much competition to be that winner that the winner's life isn't worth it either.

This is the post religion world, late stage capitalism balls to the walls, no holds barred, sky is the limit libertarian life. Work hard play hard etc.

I hope we can evolve past this mindset to something that is better for people. We need to focus on the health of the human race over the achievements of the human race if we want to survive and thrive long term.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#183

Post by qppo »

GhostVII wrote: post #178
usgroup wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Olympics is just generally physically bad for the athletes. Runners, weightlifters, wrestlers, boxers, rowers, etc all these folks end up working so close o the edge of sustainable human tolerance and capacity that’s it’s unlikely they are not constantly going over it.

With things like running, rowing, and weightlifting you aren't at a significant risk of brain injury though. I would much rather have damaged joints than a damaged brain. And for these sledding athletes, it sounds like this damage is constant and inevitable even if you do everything perfectly, rather than a result of accidents like with sports like snowboarding and skiing.

Injury risk can be counterintuitive, like how synchronized swimmers pretty much universally suffer from concussions [0]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2016/08/16/490074935/t...

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#184

Post by briefcomment »

gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

I feel like we should demonetize competitive sports. Sports are wonderful, but money (and maybe fame) incentivizes you past the point where you stop based on how your body feels.

Maybe we miss out on records and storylines, but I think there are much healthier ways of spending our time.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#185

Post by tzs »

toyg wrote: post #107
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13

> On Feb. 22, 2013, Morris attached an accelerometer to his helmet, then launched his body down a 1,500-meter track at the sliding center in Whistler, British Columbia, which is considered the fastest track in the world and was a venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Bobsleigh has been a feature of the Winter Olympics since 1924 [1]. Yet it might have taken until 2013 for someone to measure its g force on its athletes'…

> it might have taken until 2013 for someone to measure its g force To be fair, measuring this sort of thing was pretty hard in the past, when cheap miniaturized sensors and memory didn't exist. I expect we will see more and more activities being re-evaluated now that tech is easily wearable.

Could you do it photographically? If you can photograph the head movements at a high enough frame rate, you should be able to calculate the acceleration that produced those movements.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#186

Post by burger_moon »

GhostVII wrote: post #178
usgroup wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Olympics is just generally physically bad for the athletes. Runners, weightlifters, wrestlers, boxers, rowers, etc all these folks end up working so close o the edge of sustainable human tolerance and capacity that’s it’s unlikely they are not constantly going over it.

With things like running, rowing, and weightlifting you aren't at a significant risk of brain injury though. I would much rather have damaged joints than a damaged brain. And for these sledding athletes, it sounds like this damage is constant and inevitable even if you do everything perfectly, rather than a result of accidents like with sports like snowboarding and skiing.

Weight cutting is pretty bad for your body, and they take it to extreme levels of drying out their bodies too, so any of these sports which have weight classes (all the weight lifting, wrestling) are pretty damaging to all organs in the body and have caused death before. Not advocating to stop these in Olympics, pointing out there's non-obvious risks athletes take beside head trauma.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#187

Post by tomaszdiesel »

notacoward wrote: post #159
tomaszdiesel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where i live (especially in my local region) tourism is huge. especially in winter. and IMHO skiing is one of the most dangerous winter activities you can do. i honestly always bring this up because i think skiing is wrongfully seen as a "casual activity". having worked in a hospital for some time, you wouldn't believe how many accidents we receive in winter just because of skiing accidents. it's by far the worst tim…

The thing about skiing (and snowboarding) is that improving measurable performance almost always requires taking more risks - harder trails or higher speed. Contrast with running, for example, where increasing speed involves no risk at all. Most people want to improve at what they do, so the ski resorts are filled with people at the edge of their ability, all in proximity to one another. That plus the sheer speed pra…

i agree, you're never going to be able to ski down a black-level route if you don't take the very first risk: going from blue-level to red-level. but with my prev comment i hope to kind of shed light on how dangerous skiing actually is as i often hear people having very relaxed opinions on skiing so i just feel obligated to share my experience lol

so to lead back to the original comment, i don't think it's ironic at all that Schuhmacher had his accident while skiing instead of driving F1. i consider skiing much more dangerous. however do take that opinion with a grain of salt. i'm not into F1, have never driven a F1 car, never watched a full race and don't know the statistics about average injury rates of F1 drivers. but i do know that the mountains are full of idiots going high speed, which isn't even required to get a high level injury. while on the race track, you drive against other professionals.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#188

Post by erfgh »

gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

How about we let people decide on their won what they want to do with their lives?

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#190

Post by erfgh »

skizm wrote: post #176
Invictus0 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WRT knee damage, I found a Harvard report saying that running helps protect your knees against arthritis [0]. You'll have to source your own hormonal claim because it was too vague for me to find much, but what I did find did not seem negative [1][2]. [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/will-continuing-to... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19046725/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18208421/

That first link is just a Q/A. There is no study or report linked. Almost all studies use untrained vs trained athletes. They rarely qualified what "trained" means and could be anything from a lifetime athlete to someone who self-reported following a 6 week plan prior to the study and now we consider this person "trained". Most athletic studies are used to compare a sedentary person to someone who workouts casually (…

How do you know all that? There is no scientific consensus that exercising over 10 ours per week sacrifices your overall health.
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