Injury Rates Among Olympic Sports: Surprising Insights

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Transcript

1 in 11 Olympic athletes from the 2020 games got injured. According to this study, which analyzed the medical records from the over 11,000 athletes. But not always in the sports that you would think. I'll show you which ones, but first let's play a little game. Comment down below with your guess for the sport with the most and least injuries. And as a bonus, you could add in which ones you think are the most and least severe injuries. Pause and write your answer. Ready? The sport with the least number of injuries was... Drumroll please. Fink. Followed closely by road cycling, marathon swimming, rowing, and shooting. well under 5% getting injured. It's funny, diving seems pretty terrifying, but it's actually just a very short burst of motion for something that they are extremely well practiced in. And all the rest are either finesse or endurance activities with no sudden motions or surprises or interactions with other people. In the middle of the pack, with 10 to 12% of the total athletes getting injured and then a smaller subset getting either injured for more than one day or more than one week. We've got the interactive sports like volleyball, three-on-three basketball, and table tennis. As well as the more intensive solo activities like weightlifting and gymnastics. is at the top of those for total injuries, but understandably it's also at the bottom for severe ones. Speaking of which, in the top 10 for total injuries is golf, with a solid 15% of participants getting injured. But almost all of those were for less than a day. But now for the big ones. The sports I would never try. The martial arts like judo, taekwondo, and wrestling were all pretty high up there for both total injuries and severe injuries. And I didn't even know handball was a thing in the Olympics, but it's number six on the list. Number five for total injuries, but number two for severe was karate, newly added in 2020. Number four for total, but surprisingly few severe, was skateboarding. I'll stick to Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Number three for total and with plenty of severe is cycling BMX freestyle. Also newly added. And now, tied for number one total injuries, with 27% of all athletes getting injured, boxing and cycling BMX racing. With BMX racing, having more than 10% of all. all the athletes getting injured enough to take them out for more than a week. If I tried it, I would die. So how'd you do?

Additional notes

First person to guess the Most and Least will get a callout in my next video! The source caption also notes that 4% of athletes got sick during the Olympics, and almost 8% of swimmers did.

References