This weekend an official named Lars Engebretsen, who has the slightly awesome job title of head of scientific activities at the IOC (which makes us picture magnesium strips and bright white light, when the reality is likely to be far less glamourous and involving test tubes of urine, but still…) made this anything but awesome comment regarding slopestyle’s existence in the Winter Olympics:
The injury rates are “much higher than any other sport in Sochi… that sport should change, otherwise we shouldn’t have it. But the IOC may not follow that…”
He went on to call slopestyle “problematic” saying “something has to be done with that sport.”
Engebretsen made clear he wasn’t speaking for the IOC and that is was his opinion, finishing up by saying: “Slopestyle is exciting, but it’s just become, right now anyway, too exciting.”
Quite how it’s more dangerous than say downhill skiing where competitors can and do frequent;y crash at 90 mph is anyone’s guess, but even if you take out the radness of Jenny Jones’s amazing bronze it was easily the sickest and most watchable event at any Winter Olympics ever, especially amongst younger viewers according to the BBC, so taking it out would be pretty damn foolish in our eyes. And tears would be shed. But this is probably one of those storm in teacup stories the internet loves to whip up once in a while so we’re not going to stress too much on it.
