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Skicross injuries show the risks of the sport and the challenges of course-building

There's a severe risk of injury in plenty of the Winter Olympic sports, and we're really seeing that with skicross in Sochi. The sport, which originated in the 1980s as a way to bring the side-by-side racing excitement found in motocross and auto racing to skiing, has four participants racing at a time, taking on both steep downhills and jumps in a race to the finish. It's a fantastic spectator sport, but in Russia, it's led to numerous injuries thus far, including Russia's Maria Komissarova breaking a vertebra in her back during a training run Saturday and requiring six and a half hours of surgery in Germany. That's led to questions about if the Sochi course is unsafe, if injuries are to be expected in this sport, and perhaps even if qualifying standards should be more rigorous. Canadian men's skicross racer Brady Leman told Yahoo's Jeff Passan and Eric Adelson that this course is extremely difficult, which might have contributed to Komissarova's injury:

"This is a super challenging course here," Leman told Yahoo Sports. "For someone in her position, she'd had have to been on her game here. If you're one of the athletes at the back of the pack, there's not a lot of room for error."

It's notable that Leman is also talking about Komissarova's relative ability, though. As noted in that piece, she's only been competing in ski cross since the end of the 2010-11 season, and she hadn't finished in the top 15 in any event so far this season. That doesn't mean that the injury was necessarily her fault, but her skill level is something that should be factored in here. Leman went on to say that the ability spread in a relatively-young sport like ski cross can make it challenging for course designers to make something that's both challenging for the best and reasonably safe for other participants, and Canadian women's ski cross racer Marielle Thompson added that she feels the course is safe.

Leman and teammate Chris Del Bosco were the first Olympians on the course during training at 9 a.m. local time on Saturday, following a group of forerunners, or racers who test the course to see if there are any issues.

Forerunners often are less-experienced and less-qualified racers, and Leman said some forerunners "had trouble on the way down."

"It's designed for the best athletes in the world," Leman said. "Skicross is a young sport, and there's quite an ability spread still, especially on the ladies' side still." ...

“I think our sport has really made big changes in terms of safety," Thompson said. "I don’t think that many people are that concerned, especially on a big course like this that has been tested by high-level athletes in snowboard and skicross.”

There's obviously a difficult line to walk there. It's not as if Komissarova is the only one who's been hurt on that course; American Jackie Hernandez was knocked unconscious in snowboardcross qualifying Sunday, suffering a concussion, and Helene Olafsen of Norway hurt her knee the same day. Skicross and snowboardcross are sports that carry notable injury risks, though (Leman broke his leg the day before the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, missing the competition there as a result), and those can't all be prevented. Designing a course also carries the challenge of testing the best athletes while still making it safe for the other participants. If Olympic courses are going to be built for the best, perhaps it might make sense to up the qualifying standards and reduce the field to try and improve safety. Skicross and snowboardcross are never going to be completely safe, though, and that should be recognized as well in stories about these kinds of severe injuries.