The Harder They Fall: Shared Slopes Take Bigger Toll on Women. | At the Olympic extreme park, disproportionate number of women get injured. The price of equality.

shadowbanned6 · 2014-02-21T18:38:13+00:00

I wonder, if female Olympic Athletes need to be protected from men's requirements, what does that say about the military, firefighters, .....

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 huge 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. Or ski jump, in which women were finally allowed to participate this year, but only on the smaller of the two hills. The Olympics have a history — sexist, perhaps — of trying to protect women from the perils of some sports.

Ding_batman · 2014-02-22T02:16:02+00:00

This is what got me.

J. F. Cusson, ski slopestyle coach for Canada and a former X Games gold medalist, said that his women’s team usually did not practice on jumps as large as the ones the men use, for fear of injury.

“But when they compete, they have to jump on the same jumps, so they get hurt,” he said. “It’s a big concern of mine.”

Umm, if you have to compete on a certain size jump, it makes sense to train on it as well. It should be obvious that you are more likely to get injured in competition if you rarely practice on that size jump.

JayBopara · 2014-02-22T00:45:06+00:00

A Georgian Athlete was KILLED at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, because the mens luge course was difficult due to the starting position compared to much much easier and safer starting position for women. So what are we saying here? Make it only dangerous for men but not for women?

I must say, that is one of the things I have appreciated about these winter games - men & women on the same course. Because there are so many male competitors and men trying out for most of the sports compared to women, it is often considerably harder to make it to the top as a male athlete (although funding is often harder to come by as a female athlete it must be said).

Title	The Harder They Fall: Shared Slopes Take Bigger Toll on Women. \| At the Olympic extreme park, disproportionate number of women get injured. The price of equality.
Author	shadowbanned6
Upvotes	18
Comments	8
Date	February 21, 2014 6:36 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/1yk08l/the-harder-they-fall-shared-slopes-take-bigger-/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-harder-they-fall-shared-slopes-take-bigger.1614840 https://theredarchive.com/post/1614840

Comments