Editor,
Watching the Winter Olympics, I wondered where the Occupational Health and Safety officials were. The impacts on knees and backs with the moguls and the numerous potential dangers with the luge and jumps are too serious to ignore, or are they?
In the modern world, children are often overly protected from injury by playing “safe” versions of sports and from “losing” by having no scores being kept or having runners-up ribbons.
Sport at any level, backyard or Olympic, does come with risks of potential injuries and, unfortunately, even deaths, but the benefits outweigh the risks.
Some of the benefits include fitness, team building, self-confidence and an understanding that effort is rewarded, sometimes with a win although, hopefully, always with satisfaction the best possible effort has been put in.
Maybe the competitor’s uniforms could include high-visibility fluorescent bands in their countries colours, just in case that helps when they crash.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia