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World Cup racing safety discussion

Bolder

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MOD NOTE: This thread has been created to pull a discussion out of the Women's World Cup thread, into its own, more appropriate thread. Please discuss here, and not in the prior thread.

Vickhoff-Lie's crash...I knew watching it live that it was Not Good. Then she started screaming in pain and my wife started freaking out. Actually, I started freaking out too. I can only imagine the pain of being caught up in the netting like that with a broken leg.

But...I still wish there was a way to release the skis at a lower tension in that situation somehow. Her crash started out OK, then she piroutted and the ski caught in the snow and wrenched her leg, then into the netting at a bad angle. She might have still been hurt if her skis had released earlier but doubt we'd be talking double fracture.
 
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Primoz

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I would say in both cases, bindings didn't really play role, and even if they would be set to minimum, they wouldn't release. I would say in both cases bones were gone way before bindings would release even if on minimum, and once bone is gone, there's no counter force to get boot out of binding. But no matter how bad it looked like, I would still say result is actually way better then if knee would be gone. This way it's few months and they will be back like new. With knee ligaments it's never this easy.
 

Noodler

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I would say in both cases, bindings didn't really play role, and even if they would be set to minimum, they wouldn't release. I would say in both cases bones were gone way before bindings would release even if on minimum, and once bone is gone, there's no counter force to get boot out of binding. But no matter how bad it looked like, I would still say result is actually way better then if knee would be gone. This way it's few months and they will be back like new. With knee ligaments it's never this easy.

I'll say from experience that dealing with a spiral distal segmented fracture of the tibia & fibula, "back like new" isn't guaranteed. Here I am 15 years later after my initial injury still dealing with complications from that accident every day. I took me over 2 years to get back on a mountain and then lost additional seasons later due to further complications. If her legs look like mine did (pretty much a broken jigsaw puzzle of bone pieces) then her recovery may be long and she very well may not be able to race again.
 

Primoz

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@Noodler I know. Friend of mine had similar experience then you few years ago... looked sort of ok on beginning until they found out, they should do it other way (don't ask for details as I don't have them and I'm not into medical stuff enough that I would care to ask more at that time :) ), and after a bit less then a year, it went all over again. But one thing is treatment normal people get, the other is treatment and rehab that top athletes with no budget limitations and with access to best specialists for certain things, get.
 

hbear

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Typically one rather broken bone over destroyed ligament. At least the bond mends (often ends up stronger at the fracture point) well while ligament reconstruction is never the same and never as strong.
 

no edge

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That's an ugly break and I would make no bets on the outcome. I hope she has the best because I think she is going to need it. I pray for the best best possible results.
 

Rod MacDonald

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Horrible crashes, and devastating injuries . I have several questions about this. Why do the gates not have a breakaway feature to prevent hooking / grabbing at speed causing jerking accidents? Are the gates in speed disciplines the same poles as used in slalom gates?
Why do the racers not wear a heavier duty version of the knee/shin armour that the slalom racers wear?
I'd like to think that today it would be possible for the bindings to be released in conjunction with the activation of the suit airbag, therfore preventing prerelease, but still removing the huge twisting forces with are generated, (especially when the legs is broken and the torque required to eject from the binding cannot be achieved).
 

James

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I'd like to think that today it would be possible for the bindings to be released in conjunction with the activation of the suit airbag, therfore preventing prerelease, but still removing the huge twisting forces with are generated, (especially when the legs is broken and the torque required to eject from the binding cannot be achieved).
Well you’d have to have buy in by the athletes of any such system. The problem is that release at the wrong time would cause the problem you’re trying to solve, and could easily be worse. Sudden release at high speeds in a turn is a background fear.

The gates are a good point. Bode complained about the lack of easy break away panels. His last injury, a bad leg gash, he thinks would not have happened had the panel just given way.
The gate poles is a good point. At those speeds, the poles bending down does nothing. There’s likely a better solution for speed and even gs events. Don’t know if there’s any will to find it.

In 1989 Brian Stemmle of Canada got his ski tip caught in the net at Kitzbuhel doing like 70mph. (It’s probably a good thing there was no high definition clear slomo video back then) The forces ripped his pelvis apart and caused other serious internal injuries. He likely would have died without a helicopter to quickly take him to a trauma ER. He was later put in an induced coma for 5 days.
 

hbear

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Horrible crashes, and devastating injuries . I have several questions about this. Why do the gates not have a breakaway feature to prevent hooking / grabbing at speed causing jerking accidents? Are the gates in speed disciplines the same poles as used in slalom gates?
Why do the racers not wear a heavier duty version of the knee/shin armour that the slalom racers wear?
I'd like to think that today it would be possible for the bindings to be released in conjunction with the activation of the suit airbag, therfore preventing prerelease, but still removing the huge twisting forces with are generated, (especially when the legs is broken and the torque required to eject from the binding cannot be achieved).

A gate with a breakaway feature would also result in destroyed gates when athlete clears the gate normally through their skiing. Gates are the same in all disciplines (brush in the drilled hole, sprung at the surface and then the gate you see). The fabric panels used to be quite fixed long ago, and now the panels do pull away from the gate should an athlete error and end up going through them.
Shin guards would serve no purpose in GS or speed events, they are used in SL to protect when cross blocking, the clearing technique is very different with a panelled gate vs. single pole.

As far as binding release goes, at this level the priority is to keep the skis on....skis coming off when you don't want them to is significantly more troublesome than ones that don't so priority on staying attached. Any system linked like that to an airbag is prone to some error and the racers rather not risk it (not all wear airbags either). While I understand airbags are better now, there are more than a few incidences where the airbag went off when not required too.

Terrible accidents, for Lie part of the problem was her skis getting crossed up and the edge digging in when she was sliding. That's just an awful force to have to deal with....seen a lot of knees blown from athletes trying to use their edges to slow their crash...in Lie's case, not much she could do as her skis crossed, but even at GS speeds we teach our athletes to keep the skis off the snow, enjoy the slide and brace for the impact with the netting.

Usually the B-net pulls out of the ground and wraps the athlete up (as designed), didn't look like the net gave as much as it should. But honestly didn't watch more than once so not like I studied that carefully.
 

Rod MacDonald

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A gate with a breakaway feature would also result in destroyed gates when athlete clears the gate normally through their skiing. Gates are the same in all disciplines (brush in the drilled hole, sprung at the surface and then the gate you see). The fabric panels used to be quite fixed long ago, and now the panels do pull away from the gate should an athlete error and end up going through them.
Shin guards would serve no purpose in GS or speed events, they are used in SL to protect when cross blocking, the clearing technique is very different with a panelled gate vs. single pole.

As far as binding release goes, at this level the priority is to keep the skis on....skis coming off when you don't want them to is significantly more troublesome than ones that don't so priority on staying attached. Any system linked like that to an airbag is prone to some error and the racers rather not risk it (not all wear airbags either). While I understand airbags are better now, there are more than a few incidences where the airbag went off when not required too.

Terrible accidents, for Lie part of the problem was her skis getting crossed up and the edge digging in when she was sliding. That's just an awful force to have to deal with....seen a lot of knees blown from athletes trying to use their edges to slow their crash...in Lie's case, not much she could do as her skis crossed, but even at GS speeds we teach our athletes to keep the skis off the snow, enjoy the slide and brace for the impact with the netting.

Usually the B-net pulls out of the ground and wraps the athlete up (as designed), didn't look like the net gave as much as it should. But honestly didn't watch more than once so not like I studied that carefully.
I fully understand that unintentional release is a problem, hence tying activation to the deployment of the airbag. I don't believe it's a problem to get the athletes to buy into it once the system is tested, it simply has to be mandatory. There are mandatory safety elements to most sports.
As for the gates, since its a two pole gate, the interior pole could be supported more by the outer pole, while allowing more of a break away function. The poles being displaced by normal passage of the skier is dependent on how much pressure is required to cause the breakaway. This could certainly help to prevent hooking injuries.

Shin guards would certainly help. I understand their use/purpose in slalom but there's no reason they or stronger versions could not be used to prevent or mitigate injury . If arm guards are effective enough to be used there's no reason shin guards could not do the same.
 

Rudi Riet

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I fully understand that unintentional release is a problem, hence tying activation to the deployment of the airbag. I don't believe it's a problem to get the athletes to buy into it once the system is tested, it simply has to be mandatory. There are mandatory safety elements to most sports.

As noted above: not all athletes are wearing the airbag systems, and they've proven inexact in their execution. They can - and do - misfire or not fire at all.

And having an inadvertent binding release is far more dangerous for these athletes, especially at speed. Again, Lie's issue was that her skis crossed after her spin, and whether or not her binding released is a purely academic exercise. @hbear is correct: most coaches teach athletes to "turtle slide" and get their skis off the snow, letting the B-nets and "Willy bags" do the slowing and stopping.

As for the gates, since its a two pole gate, the interior pole could be supported more by the outer pole, while allowing more of a break away function. The poles being displaced by normal passage of the skier is dependent on how much pressure is required to cause the breakaway. This could certainly help to prevent hooking injuries.

The gate flag attachment mechanism is something that's been updated a few times over the past decade. In speed events the breakaway mechanism for flags is a lot more prone to release now than it was in 2015 when Bode had his crash at Beaver Creek. But to make the gate pole more prone to release would make the "Race Interrupted" delays far more frequent and be a nightmare for the local organizing committee (LOC) to keep the course in good shape.

These kinds crashes are the exception, to be frank. And no, the gate setups aren't perfect for every incident. Gate designs will continue to evolve over time. Sadly, pilot error will always be a factor and hopefully the designs of gates, panels, and other course markings will evolve to strike a better balance of function, durability, and safety.

Shin guards would certainly help. I understand their use/purpose in slalom but there's no reason they or stronger versions could not be used to prevent or mitigate injury . If arm guards are effective enough to be used there's no reason shin guards could not do the same.

Arm guards aren't used to prevent broken arms. They're used to prevent impact bruising - full stop. They may prevent some stress fractures but if you notice how most athletes use said guards they hit the gate at an angle where the gate pole slides away rather than hit at a right angle.

And a shin guard makes zero sense in my mind. For it to be effective it would need to attach to the boot via some means - something the slalom ones do not, and on purpose as you don't want armor to interfere with the boot function and interface with the ski. To wit: remember the tall boots movement in the late 70s/early 80s? Sure, more tib-fib breaks at the boot top were prevented, but at the expense of every ligament in the knee, the tibial plateau, et al. This is all pushing the deck chairs around on the Titanic: it means well, but it won't prevent debilitating injuries.

Additionally, these bits of armor (which are all worn outside the race suit by regulation) slide easily, and part of the equipment homologation of race suits is that they have enough permeability to not slide too efficiently and thus send an athlete accelerating after a crash.

Back to the "there are mandatory safety elements to most sports" line: @Rod MacDonald, I encourage you to read the FIS safety and ski equipment homologation rules to get an idea of how much thought is put into the construction, function, and placement of equipment, from skis to armor, gate flags to nets, the whole lot. It's not perfect, but there's a lot of thought put into these things. Sadly many of the big changes have been brought about by tragedy but there are reasons behind things like not having binding release tied to a still-in-development technology like airbags.

Just my $0.02 as a person who has been knee (neck?) deep in the alpine racing world for decades and continues to ponder the safety aspects every day I'm around a race or training course...
 

Bruno Schull

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@ Rudi,

Thanks for your perspective--really interesting.

I have a question.

Above, you wrote, "And having an inadvertent binding release is far more dangerous for these athletes, especially at speed. Again, Lie's issue was that her skis crossed after her spin, and whether or not her binding released is a purely academic exercise. @hbear is correct: most coaches teach athletes to "turtle slide" and get their skis off the snow, letting the B-nets and "Willy bags" do the slowing and stopping."

I understand that she crossed her skis, but why does that make whether or not her binding releases an academic exercise? I would think that, when the force exceeded the release setting in one of the planes of release for her binding, the mechanism should release, skis crossed of not. I know that bindings won't release in all directions, and I know that forces on bones/ligaments can be enough to cause fracture and rupture before bindings release (obviously), but again, what about crossing her skis make the binding irrelevant? Are you simply saying that, once her skis got crossed, the forces on her lower leg were such that they were not directed through binding in a way that would cause release?

As for technology improvements, I also struggle to understand how some sorts of changes could not be implemented. It doesn't seem right that, when a skier lines up for a race, they accept a potentially career or life changing injury. Yes, of course, athletes in many other sports, and everyday people, accept risks like that all the time. But the important question is not people should or should not take risks, but what steps a professional organization is taking to reduce the incidence of injuries, and, if steps are not being taken, why not? What are the priorities? For example, I very much understand the practical concerns of releasable poles and the local organization committees that you described above, but, really, if there was a safer pole, I would say it should be mandated. If need be, make 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or whatever, and distribute them to all WC courses. It seems possible. The imagine that the impediments are organizational and economic, which means that these things are being prioritized over health and safety, and that feels wrong.

Last, concerning some kind of auto-release bindings, either electrical, or chemical (like an air bag), controlled by a CPU or whatever, I think this would be difficult to implement for the general public (maintenance, durability, certification, liability) but for professional events it might be possible. Yes, they want their skis to stay on. And yes, athletes are notoriously conservative about changing their equipment. But with the rapidly advancing technology we have, especially with regards to micro electronics, sensors, and control process, I can't imagine there isn't a solution. Again, it's an issue or priorities: Who would do the research? Who would make the investment? Where would the money come from? Hopefully it will move forward slowly, but not before many more injuries.
 

scott43

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Not a criticism of anyone, honestly..but when I hear "that's the way it is" I think of F1 and self-sealing fuel tanks...
 

CascadeConcrete

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I fully understand that unintentional release is a problem, hence tying activation to the deployment of the airbag. I don't believe it's a problem to get the athletes to buy into it once the system is tested, it simply has to be mandatory. There are mandatory safety elements to most sports.
As for the gates, since its a two pole gate, the interior pole could be supported more by the outer pole, while allowing more of a break away function. The poles being displaced by normal passage of the skier is dependent on how much pressure is required to cause the breakaway. This could certainly help to prevent hooking injuries.

Shin guards would certainly help. I understand their use/purpose in slalom but there's no reason they or stronger versions could not be used to prevent or mitigate injury . If arm guards are effective enough to be used there's no reason shin guards could not do the same.

Athlete buy in is still a problem even with mandatory changes. Just look what happened when FIS increased the minimum ski length and radius in GS without athlete support for the new rules (spoiler: the rule was mostly rolled back within the next few years). And you risk a massive lawsuit from the athletes if one of those newly mandated bindings releases when it shouldn't, leading to serious injury or worse. You're talking about taking completely untested (actually non-existent) technology, and forcing athletes who are already taking on enormous risk by the very nature of the sport to now be guinea pigs with these new bindings.

As for the poles breaking away easier, you do realize that racers hit them on purpose, often with a lot of force, even in speed events? There's a balance between gates getting out of the way in an emergency and having to replace multiple broken gates after every single run. And I'm really not sure what you expect shin guards to do. They're there to prevent bruising from direct impact with the gates. But racers don't shin gates in speed events like they do in SL. They contact the gates in other areas which also have padding. I don't see any mechanism by which SL shin guards would ever prevent a tib/fib break. That's just not what they do at all.

It doesn't seem right that, when a skier lines up for a race, they accept a potentially career or life changing injury

Honestly, I really don't know how to say this other than bluntly: the sport of DH and SG racing is extremely unsafe. Inherently. At some point we have to acknowledge that there really is no way to make screaming down an icy slope in excess of highway speeds with nothing but a helmet and a speed suit between you and the cold, hard ground safe. There are already tons of things that are done to make it safer than it might otherwise be, but it will never be safe. Don't get me wrong, if there are things we can do to increase the safety margins a little, we absolutely should. But there's just no way you'll ever run a DH that remotely resembles the sport as it exists now in a way where athletes do not have to "accept a potentially career or life changing injury." If you think that's unacceptable, the only real solution is to ban speed races.
 

scott43

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Honestly, I really don't know how to say this other than bluntly: the sport of DH and SG racing is extremely unsafe. Inherently. At some point we have to acknowledge that there really is no way to make screaming down an icy slope in excess of highway speeds with nothing but a helmet and a speed suit between you and the cold, hard ground safe. There are already tons of things that are done to make it safer than it might otherwise be, but it will never be safe. Don't get me wrong, if there are things we can do to increase the safety margins a little, we absolutely should. But there's just no way you'll ever run a DH that remotely resembles the sport as it exists now in a way where athletes do not have to "accept a potentially career or life changing injury." If you think that's unacceptable, the only real solution is to ban speed races.
This is the type of answer that was popular in all motorsports events for a very long time. I get the "do whatever you can" inference..but..it's pretty lazy, no offence. If it's left to organizers, nothing happens.
 

Rod MacDonald

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As for the poles breaking away easier, you do realize that racers hit them on purpose, often with a lot of force, even in speed events? There's a balance between gates getting out of the way in an emergency and having to replace multiple broken gates after every single run. And I'm really not sure what you expect shin guards to do. They're there to prevent bruising from direct impact with the gates. But racers don't shin gates in speed events like they do in SL. They contact the gates in other areas which also have padding. I don't see any mechanism by which SL shin guards would ever prevent a tib/fib break. That's just not what they do at all.

But thats EXACTLY what they do. They just do it at a lower level currently. They are part of a technique in slalom, in speed disciplines they would be a protective item.

If you'd like , I could swing a baseball bat at your shin just below the knee, and then you could tell me whether you'd have preferred to have been wearing a protective device or not.
 

CascadeConcrete

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But thats EXACTLY what they do. They just do it at a lower level currently. They are part of a technique in slalom, in speed disciplines they would be a protective item.

If you'd like , I could swing a baseball bat at your shin just below the knee, and then you could tell me whether you'd have preferred to have been wearing a protective device or not.

It's not exactly what they do, because racers don't shin gates in speed... They wear padding and guards in other places because that's where they contact gates. None of it is designed to, nor capable of preventing bones from snapping. They are for dissipating the worst of an impact, not reinforcing your bone against forces being levered against it. Totally different things. If speed racers preferred the protection of SL guards, they would wear them. As far as I know, there's nothing that prohibits this (edit: it's prohibited in DH, not SG).

It should be noted that, at least to my eye, Lie's bones appears to snap when the ski contacts the ground. There was no gate involved. Schneeberger does hit a gate but she has already lost her edge and was going down regardless. Hard to say what would have happened if she didn't hit the gate. And fwiw the gate does give way, with the flag ripping off and one pole pulling completely out of the ground. As far as I can tell, the leg is still intact at that point but it's harder to see in her video.

This is the type of answer that was popular in all motorsports events for a very long time. I get the "do whatever you can" inference..but..it's pretty lazy, no offence. If it's left to organizers, nothing happens.

I'm just confused how anyone expects to make an impact at 50-95 mph safe. That would likely cause serious injury in a car with a metal shell, crumple zones, airbags and seat belts. Racers have a helmet and a speed suit to absorb the impact. Maybe some netting, depending on where/how they crash. The sport has substantial inherent risks that I do not believe can ever be eliminated without fundamentally altering its very nature.
 
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CascadeConcrete

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no external padding/guards in DH, that's why you see forearm guards in SG but not DH.
Fair enough. I will edit my post. That said, you don't see Super G racers wearing shin guards either. And Lie's crash actually was in Super G fwiw.
 

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