<story><title>Sledding athletes are taking their lives</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/sports/olympics/olympics-bobsled-suicide-brain-injuries.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gnramires</author><text>This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery.&lt;p&gt;An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary (shed maximum accel to 1&amp;#x2F;3 current and I bet lifetime injuries could become acceptable). Mandatory equipment changes would probably help as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>usgroup</author><text>I think the Olympics is just generally physically bad for the athletes. Runners, weightlifters, wrestlers, boxers, rowers, etc all these folks end up working so close o the edge of sustainable human tolerance and capacity that’s it’s unlikely they are not constantly going over it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sledding athletes are taking their lives</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/sports/olympics/olympics-bobsled-suicide-brain-injuries.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gnramires</author><text>This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery.&lt;p&gt;An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary (shed maximum accel to 1&amp;#x2F;3 current and I bet lifetime injuries could become acceptable). Mandatory equipment changes would probably help as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>matz1</author><text>&amp;gt;pointless self-destruction and misery.&lt;p&gt;Maybe its pointless for you, fair enough but it can be meaningfull for other people, i myself think it&amp;#x27;s interesting.</text></comment>