What is the most dangerous sport in the Winter Olympics?

Question

The Winter Olympics, much more so than the Summer Olympics, includes lots of sports that seem dangerous. Many of the sports involve incredible speed or jumps that are not found in the Summer games. Of all the events in the Winter games, which is the most dangerous?

To be more specific, I'm wondering, of all the sports in the Winter Olympics, which sport has the highest rate of serious injuries or fatalities among participants; not necessarily only during the Olympics, but in general by people participating in the sport at a competitive level.

Answer 1

The definition of what is the most dangerous Winter Olympic sport is dependent on how you quantify 'dangerous'. An obvious definition would be the number of fatalities. Whilst it is hard to find statistics for winter sports as a whole, the number of fatalities at the Winter Olympic games has totalled 4, with two of them occuring in the Luge:

1. Ross Milne (19), Australia – Downhill Skiing – 1964, Innsbruck - Ski collision in practice
2. Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypecki, Britain – Luge – 1964, Innsbruck - Luge crash in practice
3. Nicolas Bochatay (27), Switzerland – Speed Skiing (demonstration sport) – 1992, Albertville - Collided with a snow machine in practice.
4. Nodar Kumaritashvili (21), Georgia – Luge – 2010, Vancouver - Luge crash in practice.

Quantifying this is, as I say, difficult, but it is obvious that the higher the speed and the more acrobatic an event is then the higher the risk of injury. Two good discussions are presented on these sites:

• Danger zone: Which Winter Olympic sport is the least safe?
• 2014 Winter Olympics: The Definitive Ranking of Events, From Most Exciting to Barely Watchable

Answer 2

It depends on what you mean by dangerous.

In Winter Olympic history it will happened twice that a Luge athlete died during the (practice) competion

• Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypecki, - Luge - 1964, Innsbruck
• Nodar Kumaritashvili, - Luge - 2010, Vancouver

other death in Winter Olympic competition were:

• Ross Milne, – Downhill Skiing – 1964, Innsbruck
• Nicolas Bochatay, – Speed Skiing – 1992, Albertville

Generally there were several tragical moment in winter sport (not during Olympic events) and I think alpine skying is where it happened most than other speciality (Ulrike Maier, Regine Cavagnoud, Nick Zoricic)

Another interesting article on injury in Olympic sports