Women Getting Tore All To Heck At Olympics "Extreme" Sports

[roo_ster]

In the new-fangled "extreme" sports.

Extreme Park Crashes Taking Outsize Toll on Women
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/02/extreme-park-crashes-taking-outsize.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/sports/olympics/extreme-park-crashes-taking-outsize-toll-on-women.html?hpw&rref=sports&_r=0

Old school winter O sports had different/shorter courses for women.  New ones, where grrl-power has influenced course design, use the same courses.

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.

Anyone who has trained with both male & female athletes could have predicted this would happen, if no concessions were made to physics and biology.  I suppose the English and Journalism majors at the NYT likley never were hard core athletes.

Another new wrinkle is that skiers are now doing the crazy stuff that snowboarders have been doing, and skis are much faster than boards, so they go faster and higher. (The advantage of snowboards is that they are slow, so you don't need as big a ski mountain to have fun on, so more people can snowboard more locally and thus more often.)

I watched men's ski slopestyle (skis are faster than snowboards, so the jumps are immense) and the only way they could have made that even more entertaining was if they had allowed competitors to fire shoulder-mounted Stinger surface-to-air missiles at each other.

[BlueStarLizzard]

If they want to do it and risk the injury, who are you too say boo?

It's a sport involving putting waxed sticks with sharp metel edges on ones feet and sliding on packed snow and ice. You get ripped, fact of life.

[zxcvbob]

Have they done away with the normal women's sports, or just opened up a new "extreme" category?   

[Ron]

The bread must be tastier than the last and the circuses by necessity have to become more elaborate, dangerous or violent.

 

[roo_ster]

If they want to do it and risk the injury, who are you too say boo?

It's a sport involving putting waxed sticks with sharp metel edges on ones feet and sliding on packed snow and ice. You get ripped, fact of life.

Who are you to say I ought not say anything about it?  Maybe we ought to have a moratorium on winter olympics posts?  Did not think men & women playing in the snow was that controversial.

Have they done away with the normal women's sports, or just opened up a new "extreme" category?   

Still have the old ones, though they churn and go in & out of fashion.  These are new competitions that emulate the "X Games" crop of competitions.  Course design is the same for men & women.

Olympic organizers want to build courses and competitions that are the equal, at least, of the Winter X Games, where men and women compete on the same courses and where most of the Extreme Park events gained wide popularity. But the invitation-only X Games have small fields, often 10 or fewer of the world’s best. The Olympics, by design, want larger fields with a wide cross-section of countries. The drop-off in talent between top athletes and the bottom of the field can be drastic.

[BlueStarLizzard]

You can say all you want, and I can say you're being a sexist ass.

Those chicks are not the ones who give a crap about getting torn up for personal glory. They risk no lives but their own, and would probably give up all to be able to compete straight up with the guys, instead of just allowed to use the same course.

You're bleats of "but their more likely to get hurt!!" and sense of smug superority in the opinion that the girls would be better off competing on their own courses where they'll be safer is an insult.
They have right in the world to risk themselves and if you can't take watching the "little woman" get a boo boo, then don't don't watch.

Do you honestly think that a bunch of chicks who grew up being the only misfit female ripping up the snowpark in a group of guys is going to sit and nod "oh, yes, rooster, now I see! What I'm doing has a higher risk for me then the boys, so I'm going to stop doing it!!" ?

It will be a long time, if ever, before the x sports style competitions evolve into truely diffrent events between the genders, simply because the few woman who are going to go into those sports arn't going to have enough competition at the lower levels to bother having the variations and by the time they get to the higher levels, well, there's no point changing it up by then.

[Balog]

My goodness, that's an awful lot of projection, reading into the post, and general butthurtness going on there.

Nothing is more sexist than recognizing and commenting on objective reality that isn't in accord with feminist views. How dare you sir! The fact that what you're saying is the truth is no defense, keep your damnable hatefacts to yourself.

[roo_ster]

You can say all you want, and I can say you're being a sexist ass.

Those chicks are not the ones who give a crap about getting torn up for personal glory. They risk no lives but their own, and would probably give up all to be able to compete straight up with the guys, instead of just allowed to use the same course.

You're bleats of "but their more likely to get hurt!!" and sense of smug superority in the opinion that the girls would be better off competing on their own courses where they'll be safer is an insult.
They have right in the world to risk themselves and if you can't take watching the "little woman" get a boo boo, then don't don't watch.

Do you honestly think that a bunch of chicks who grew up being the only misfit female ripping up the snowpark in a group of guys is going to sit and nod "oh, yes, rooster, now I see! What I'm doing has a higher risk for me then the boys, so I'm going to stop doing it!!" ?

It will be a long time, if ever, before the x sports style competitions evolve into truely diffrent events between the genders, simply because the few woman who are going to go into those sports arn't going to have enough competition at the lower levels to bother having the variations and by the time they get to the higher levels, well, there's no point changing it up by then.

Not sure what your problem is, but I am not responsible for your personal hangups and your reading into the text tone and content that are not there.  You want to have a discussion on the content like an adult, without schoolyard taunts, I am more than willing.  Matter of fact, that is why I posted the article.

My goodness, that's an awful lot of projection, reading into the post, and general butthurtness going on there.

Nothing is more sexist than recognizing and commenting on objective reality that isn't in accord with feminist views. How dare you sir! The fact that what you're saying is the truth is no defense, keep your damnable hatefacts to yourself.

It surely could not be that I have an interest in the topic since I have both a son and a daughter who show interest and promise in athletics.  Couldn't be that I take an interest in both of their pursuits and seek to guide them as best I can.  Surely not because I once was a kid athlete and suffered lasting and persistent injury because my folks were ignorant and did not know when to tell the (somewhat manipulative) coach to bugger off.

Nope, its gotta be the sexiss.

[HankB]

An awful lot of the "sports" aren't sports at all, to my way of thinking.

Now, snowboarding, half-pipe, figure skating, etc., all require a lot of athletic ability - but if the winners are picked by judging, rather than by a tape measure, timer, goals scored, or some other objective criterion - it's an art, not a sport.

[zxcvbob]