The talk before the NHL All Star Game was focused on the absence of Sidney Crosby, who sustained a head injury in the Winter Classic and has been on the sidelines since Jan. 2. But Crosby is not the only Olympic hero who is out with an injury, with members of Canadian alpine, snowboarding, ski cross and freestyle teams currently suffering from a wide range of ailments. It's starting to look quite serious out there.
The Canadian Alpine Ski Team has been particularly hard-hit. The most recent loss was Whistler's Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who was airlifted from the downhill course at Chamonix, France on Saturday after catching an edge at 120 km/h. He has since been diagnosed with a broken left leg and torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), as well as other bumps and bruises. He will not return this season and may miss part of next season.
"I knew I was having a great run," said Osborne-Paradis after the crash. "I was on the line that I wanted to be on. I was accelerating. Sometimes you catch an edge. It's kind of the name of the game... There's no point in getting down."
Osborne-Paradis joined a long list of Canadian alpine stars that are injured.
The list includes reigning downhill world champion John Kucera (left leg fracture), Kelly VanderBeek (left knee), Francois Bourque (left knee), Robbie Dixon (concussion), Louis Pierre-Helie (concussion), Jan Hudec (broken right hand), Larissa Yurkiw (left knee), Jean-Philippe Roy (right knee), and Kelly McBroom (fractured left tibia). Erik Guay is currently the only senior member of the men's speed team still in competition, although he missed two events this season with a back injury. Whistler's Victoria Whitney, who was with the national development team last season, was injured while summer training at Mt. Hood.
While Canadian alpine skiers have been particularly hard hit, the rash of injuries extends to other teams as well. This past weekend in France, the Austrian team lost Mario Scheiber and Georg Streitberger. The week before they lost Hans Gregger to a head injury that required emergency brain surgery.
The International Skiing Federation (FIS) has acknowledged the injury issue and has been investigating since a rash of injuries in early 2010. At the time, they suggested that athletes were partly responsible by pushing their own limits to prepare for last year's Olympic Games, but they promised to look at everything from changes to equipment to the preparation of courses - such as grooming and course setting techniques and the practice of using fertilizers and injecting water into courses to try to improve the race surface.
In response to the rash of injuries to Canada's top athletes, and concerned over the long-term impacts to the sport if parents start taking their kids out of racing programs, Alpine Canada announced plans on Monday to host a Ski Racing Safety Summit in April.
"It's a worldwide problem and it seems to be going in waves," said Alpine Canada president Max Gartner. "We were hit really hard last year in December... and a cluster of injuries just prior to the Olympics, and now we're seeing another wave. It's been a horrible stretch."
Gartner says that other teams have also noticed the increase in injuries and are expressing their own concerns.
"Chamonix is not one of the hardest downhills, and we lost three of the top seven in the world - Mario Schieber, Georg Streitberger and Manny (Osborne-Paradis). It really is time to examine everything in ski racing and make sure we're doing all we can to minimize the risks for athletes. We are well beyond what is acceptable, as far as injuries go."
Alpine Canada will invite other national ski organizations to the summit, which will look at the causes of injuries and the preventative steps that can be taken - starting with the youngest skiers at the grass roots level. Gartner hopes that FIS will take notice and include some of those ideas at the World Cup level.
No one factor stands out in the recent rash of injuries. Gartner feels it's a combination of several factor, including new skis and equipment.
"One analogy I use is golf - 'V' grooves are good for amateurs (to hit more accurately), but they took it out of the pros to level the field," he said. "In ski racing, we have great new technology that's great for regular skiers that helps you carve, but for an elite athlete the same technology allows them to create forces that are beyond what the athletes can handle.
"But we're going to look at everything - the schedule, the surface they're skiing on and on and on. There are many factors that need to be thoroughly looked at."
Gartner is concerned that the injuries could prompt parents to withdraw their kids from ski racing. "I think that would be a big mistake," he said, "because it's a healthy sport and it's an exciting sport and it's really quite safe at a grass roots level."
Whistler's Robbie Dixon, sidelined with his second concussion in two seasons (the first one not from racing), was on hand to support Gartner's initiative.
"Ski racing has always been a high-risk sport," he said. "Most guys who get into it know that and accept it but we do anything we can to minimize risk.
"In certain areas, technology has progressed but not everything has moved at the same pace."
Canada's injury woes are not limited to alpine.
Canada Snowboard is without the services of Olympic champion Maëlle Ricker after she got caught in some safety netting at the world championships and broke her hand. The injury required surgery. Tom Velisek injured his knee training for the X Games in Aspen last weekend.
Brad Martin did compete in the world championships, but was not at 100 per cent with an ankle injury.
Ashleigh McIvor, the reigning Olympic champion in ski cross, was also injured at the X Games on one of the biggest courses that any of the athletes had ever experienced.
McIvor, who has been injured before, was following a group of guys down the course during training when she got caught in the slipstream of another skier. The result was too much speed heading into the last section of rollers, overshooting the transition on the last roller and landing on the flat. She tore the anterior cruciate ligaments in her left knee on impact, the same knee she injured at the X Games in 2005.
McIvor said she was disappointed - her whole family was going to travel to the World Championships in Deer Valley, Utah to watch her compete. She can't cancel their tickets.
McIvor will not return to racing this season. However, she also promised that she would be back in competition next year.
"I've definitely seen better days, but things could be much worse," said McIvor. "I just have to keep it all in perspective. I don't have a head injury, and I don't have a spinal injury. This will heal and I'll be back. It's all part of the game."
Following McIvor's injury the organizers changed the final jump - the biggest that many athletes had ever seen. McIvor liked the course before her injury - she's always favoured more technical courses over race-style courses - although she later questioned the decision to go as big as they did.
"I was really excited to run the course here in Aspen," she said. "It's always the biggest and burliest on the circuit. I'm so glad I got one flight in off the massive last jump before hurting myself on a smaller jump that I hadn't even thought to be scared of. I just came into this triple a little too hot and overshot it, landing way out on the flats."
The freestyle team has been more fortunate than most, although the only veteran jumper on the Canadian women's aerials team, Veronika Bauer, is currently out with a twisted knee.
There is no one single culprit behind all of the injuries, but it's been noted that competitive winter sports have stepped up a notch - competition venues are bigger, faster and tougher; improvements to equipment and tuning allows athletes to go faster; there is a greater emphasis on dryland training in the summer that allows athletes to push the envelope further; and the athletes themselves are more aggressive. There is also a greater focus on individual events - such as the Olympics, World Championships, X Games etc. - rather than the entire World Cup season, where consistency over the whole winter is rewarded as well as individual achievement.
There is also a financial incentive for athletes to push the envelope. As well as prize purses and sponsorship dollars, the Sport Canada Athlete Assistance Program will give athletes up to $1,500 per month to help them meet living and competition costs - but only if the athletes meet their criteria with international results and rankings.
