Asshole sports writer thinks skiing needs to be safer

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wricks

Member
http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/story/Sarah-Burke-halfpipe-death-leaves-hard-questions-for-extreme-sports-020812

 
Whilst I dont condone anything written by fox, I think your title is a just as sensationalist. Skiing is a risky sport and in the article thats all he says, and asks can it be safer. Not really anything new or shocking
 
Dont see how this guy is an asshole. He wrote that very well and he brought up valid points. A lot of skiers will throw around CRs words (the joy I get from skiing in worth dieing for) but how many of you have truly thought about it. Skiing is amazing for many different reasons but there are other things in life that are worth living for. What it comes down to is: Is landing that triple, or double, or getting that line really worth your life.
 
Well, Im an Australian so I probably get a bigger laugh out of fox news because Im on the outside looking in and can see how ridiculous it reall is. SBS news is the place for my news
 
Whoa what? Ashley Battersby is a pro skier?

“In skiing, it’s all individual,” said Tyler Battersby, a development coach for the Park City Ski Team whose sister, Ashley, is a competitive skier and whose mother would often host Burke when she trained in Salt Lake City."
 
not to be an asshole or anything, but why does it seem all this safety stuff comes up after sarah burk dies, she is not the first person to die skiing and she wont be the last?
 
there are no safety regulations for ski/snowboard halfpipe, which is extremely dangerous. get ready for invasion of safety patrol everywhere, its always amazed me that ski race courses and moguls are never open to the public yet freeway at breck is incredibly dangerous and open to the public with no patrol.
 
What really pissed me off is how this guy makes it seem as though we aren't taking Sarahs death seriously and don't really care because we are not making new regulations.
 
Why do we need to? Yes, we know skiing is a risky sport. Why do we do it? Because its fucking awesome. I said it once and I'll say it again. People outside of the ski and snow ports world don't and will not ever understand why we risk it for the thrill.

 
Are you trying to argue with me? Because I agree with what your are saying. Im was saying that the AUTHOR of the piece thinks that we somehow don't care about Sarah's death because we aren't making regulations to reduce the risk. ANd that made me mad!
 
The safety issue comes up every time a high profile skier dies. I remember reading almost the identical article after McConkey died.

Part of the reason safety is such a big deal is because the only time skiing really makes it into the mainstream media is when something catastrophic like this happens. So all people sitting on the outside really see is 'such and such proskier dies', 'couple spend 3 nights outside after skiing out of bounds' and 'X many people buried in inbounds avalanche' etc. And so of course they have a warped point of view when it comes to what skiing is and consider it incredibly dangerous.
 
"These accidents might have rocked the tight-knit community of freeskiers and snowboarders, whose epicenter lies here. But they do not seem to have sparked any introspection, let alone any calls to examine whether this sport, whose essence is about freedom of expression and blasting through boundaries, has become too dangerous.

Whereas the death of a luge racer on the eve of the Vancouver Olympics led to changes in the track, speed restrictions for the 2014 Games and much hand-wringing by those in the sport, nothing of the sort has happened here."

repeat "And much hand-wringing buy those in the sport, nothing of the sort has happened here."

I mean i don't think its unreasonable to make that assumption...

 
This. Skiing is just another way of pushing the limits of humanity's ability. We are no different from Antarctic explorers or astronauts in that way. We train and make sure we know what we're doing. Nothing is ever gained in this world without risk, and skiing is no exception.
 
A few quotes: "These events were a rare show of solidarity in a sport that is defined by — and celebrates — the individual. Even at the highest level, where there are sponsors, coaches, competitors, organizers and fans, it is about man vs. mountain — and himself."

Saying the I ski sarah bands were one of the only signs of unity in a sport of individuals couldn't be father from the truth.

"Hansen said preliminary data collected over the past five years by a colleague, Dr. Stuart Willick, shows that skiers and snowboarders are twice as likely to incur a brain injury in the terrain park, where the halfpipe and other jumps and rails are located, as they are on other parts of the slope."

Yeah no shit

Interesting article from the perspective of an outsider of the skiing/snowboard community, but nothing to get to worked up over.
 
Colby James West once said "its my life, its what I do" in the song My Friend is a Pro

He's right, its our life, its what we do. We know the consequences fully well. The pipe is the same for every person, and its ripe for the picking. We are stupid, young, reckless and highly prone to awful injuries. Its the nature of the beast. We can't let some writer from Fox News change that. Play with fire, you're gonna get burnt.

Like Theron said, no one will ever get it who doesn't ski and we can't put it into words.
 
whistler has a pretty smart thing going on with their black pass.

you cant get in the XL park without a special pass that costs 30 bucks for the season. Which is just enough to keep random gapers away but still not that expensive so that any serious skier can buy it.

you also cant get in that park without a helmet.

but once you get in you have a line of 5 60-80 ft jumps. super well built and pretty safe cause you know that no random gaper will cross the landing when you jump.
 
There is a point where there is too much regulation. That point is different for everyone, but I know that I dont need anyone regulating my skiing or telling me how to do it.
 
Such true words. In fact, you can usually tell who's an adrenaline seeker like us and who's on the outside just by looking at their personality or having a conversation with them. This sports writer is obviously not our type, even if he has some good points
 
True^. The XL is also the safest park b/c theres no gapers, the jumps have nice long landings and generally there arent 1000 people snaking everyone else like the blue park/whistler park..
 
I thought it was a pretty well written article IMO - interesting how he used more mainstream sports to allow the casual reader to get a better understanding of safety issues across all sports.
 
agreed. there are so many times when i go out skiing and end up doing something super dangerous without even second guessing myself. the thrill that i get from new tricks or big drops is something that is subconscious. If I can envision a trick and be confident I can pull it off, there is no "let's consider the risks, what would happen if this happened, etc". Even after a few substantial injuries, the second i'm good to go it's nearly impossible to take it "easy". Skiings dif. from most sports in the sense that we just FUCKING SEND IT
 
ive always felt, like when i used to rollerblade, that its 10% physical ability and 90% mental ability. if you know: what you need to do, how to do it, and you are physically capable of doing it, you will do it! (possibly after a couple of failed attempts and some practice).
 
it's not like a random gaper died, a park pass would have done nothing, same with the helmet rule. I do believe the whistler model is the future, for better or worse. Insurance companies will dictate that terrain use restrictions are necessary to keep terrain parks alive. And then when people continue to get hurt because of the unavoidable risks they will just close all the parks. By 2050 it will be nothing but personal snowflex treadmills with deadman brake tethers.
 
In hindsight I should have not titled the thread the way I did, I stumbled upon it at the end of a long day at work and it pissed me off for some reason. I agree that it is an interesting article and the safety of the sport is worthy of speculation because the fact is that sarah burke died and kevin pearce probably should have. With that said, you can die in any sport. James Blake (the tennis player) almost killed himself about six or seven years ago by diving for a ball and hitting the post that holds the tennis net up. Every pro or halfpipe skier understands the risks and that is why none of them called for change, which is more or less the same argument that the author was making, it was just the way he said it that seemed annoying and gaperish.
 
Skiing is dangerous and it always will be so the more people push the sport the bigger risk factor
 
Anyone who thinks skiing isn't dangerous obviously has never stood on a mountain...more or less in a superpipe... Any time u make a 22 ft high wall of chiseled ice ur canvas for arial tricks the risks are clearly obvious. Burke's death (tragic) has just shed light on the dangers to those who have never stood atop a mountain or in a superpipe. I don't think it needs to be written about though. The. Beauty of skiing is your ability to be free (for the most part) on skis. All parties assume the risks when putting the lift ticket on and walking past the 10 ft sign when entering the park or summit lift to all back country and double black access. I hear all the arguments for helmet requirements and I for the most part agree but the regulation for helmets leads to a slippery slope for other regulation that will detract from the beauty and freedom of skiing. Just one mans opinion
 
The difference is Shane died jumping off a massive cliff with a parachute, which you have to be a special kind of nuts to do... and Sarah's accident was really just terrible luck. She didn't deck out from 15 feet, she didn't overrotate something and land on her head, she just fell in an unbelievably unfortunate way. Many of us could have taken a similar fall to what she took doing what we do all the time, and ended up having the same thing happen. That can't be prevented without saying "well, that's it, skiing is over". How do you prevent freak accidents? You can't.
 
He's not really calling for any sort of radical change. Actually I didn't see any suggestions on how to improve safety in competition at all. I think as an outsider he's just commenting on the skiing community reaction being more, "this is really sad but this is part of skiing" than, "omg what are we doing lets stop this immediately."
 
Serious rage right now.
Fromhttp://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/ :
"Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among those age 5-34 in the U.S.1 More than 2.3 million adult drivers and passengers were treated in emergency departments as the result of being injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2009.2 The economic impact is also notable: the lifetime costs of crash-related deaths and injuries among drivers and passengers were $70 billion in 2005.3"

This motherfucker gets in his car everyday, despite the "odds." I've got no tolerance for outsiders pretending to muckrack while missing their own comparison.

/rant.
 
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