These Are the Most Dangerous Olympic Events
Competing at this level is inherently risky. But some sports are riskier than others.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 15: Mateus Filipe Gregorio Machado of Brazil competes during the Men's 105kg Group B Weightlifting event on Day 10 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at Riocentro - Pavilion 2 on August 15, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)Getty Images
Pushing your body to the limits of human performance invariably leads to injuries, even at the Olympics. Armenian weightlifter Andranik Karapetyan dislocated his elbow while trying to lift 429 pounds. French gymnast Samir Aït Saïd broke a leg after missing a landing on vault. Three cyclists have broken bones in road racing crashes. The list goes on.
This is all quite routine. Athletes competing in the 2012 Summer Olympiad in London suffered 1,361 injuries, a rate of 128.8 injuries per 1,000 athletes. That's significantly higher than the rate of 96.1 per 1,000 recorded in Beijing four years before.
Competing at this level is inherently risky. But some sports are riskier than others, and leave more athletes sidelined with injuries ranging from sprains and strains to concussions, fractures, and worse. Here's a look at the riskiest events at the Summer Olympics.
YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesBoxing
Boxing is among the riskiest sports at the Games, even if the men are [shunning headgear](http://slim-weight.info/2016/08/olympic-boxers-arent-wearing-headgear-anymore/) for the first time since 1984. Although the risk of injury during a bout is relatively low aside from bruises and cuts, athletes have to worry about the long-term impacts of ... well, impact. Blows to the jaw can whip a boxer's head, leading to concussions. Even subconcussive hits can increase the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease.
David Ramos/Getty ImagesCycling
Olympic cycling includes four primary events: indoor track cycling, road racing, mountain biking, and BMX, each event [riskier than the last](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/47/7/407/T1.expansion.html). BMX, where competitors race in heats over a dirt track with jumps, has the highest rate of injury, but this year has been particularly gruesome for the road cyclists, with the course design—150 miles long with cobbles and a steep final descent—contributing to broken bones and other [serious injuries](http://www.sbnation.com/2016/8/7/12398456/annemiek-van-vleuten-road-race-crash-olympics).
CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty ImagesDiving
Most divers leap well clear of the board and enter the water gracefully. But when things go wrong, they go *horribly* wrong. A missed approach or bungled dive raises the possibility of [hitting the board](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-1363376/VIDEO-Dramatic-moment-British-diver-came-close-death.html) or platform, which is how [Greg Louganis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5nqeFWufrE) concussed himself in 1988. And high dives bring the added risk of an impact injury hitting the water. A diver leaving the 10-meter platform enters the water at nearly 35 mph. At that speed, water acts more like a solid than a liquid on impact.
PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesEquestrian
Equestrian events are among the [most dangerous at the Olympics](http://olympics.time.com/2012/07/28/equestrian-eventing-the-olympics-most-dangerous-sport/), because competitors ride 1,200 pound animals at 20 mph or more. The slightest miscalculation can launch a rider, trip a horse, or clip a jump. The International Federation for Equestrian Sports [found](http://inside.fei.org/system/files/FEI_StatisticsReport_2005-2015_26.02.2016_0.pdf) that between 2005 and 2010, five of every 100 competing riders fell. Competitors now wear emergency vests that inflate on impact to protect them from being crushed under a falling horse, [decreasing the probability](http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ever-wonder-which-summer-olympic-sport-most-dangerous) of serious injury from one in 14,000 riders to one in 43,000.
Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated/Getty ImagesPole Vault
Pole vaulting seems patently dangerous: Competitors run down a track at top speed, holding a giant, flexible stick that they use to launch themselves nearly 20 feet into the air. A staggering number of things can go wrong, not the least of which is a snapped pole. Overall, rate of direct catastrophic injury from a snapped pole is 2 percent, leading to spinal, pelvic, and head injuries.
GUSTAVO ANDRADE/AFP/Getty ImagesSoccer
Surprised to see soccer here? More than two-thirds of soccer players competing during the [2008](http://www.ostrc.no/upload/Publication/Junge_2009_AJSM_Sports%20injuries%20during%20the%20Summer%20Olympic%20Games%202008.pdf) and [2012](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/47/7/407/T1.expansion.html) Olympics suffered injuries, and half of those players missed a game because of it. But even for soccer, the Games are particularly risky, with an injury rate higher than events like the [World Cup](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/9/599.full). One reason may be the fact that teams competing in the tournament are allowed just three players older than 23, which bars more seasoned and skilled players. Younger, less experienced players could overexert while competing for a major title.
Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesTaekwondo
Taekwondo is the most dangerous of the martial sports in the Games, largely because it requires landing blows to the head and torso. During the 2012 Olympics, the [rate of injury](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/47/7/407/T1.expansion.html) for taekwondo competitors was higher than those in wrestling, boxing, and fencing combined---39 percent of athletes suffered an injury of some kind.
Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty ImagesWeightlifting
Weightlifting is among the top five events in terms of injury frequency. Most are [overuse injuries](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322916/), like muscle strains or tendonitis, but the sport has the potential for far more serious problems, like herniated disks, shoulder impingement, and gruesome elbow injuries.
