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What Are the Most Dangerous Sports at the Summer Olympics?

How is badminton more dangerous than the luge?
Dustin Brown, of Germany, grabs his left ankle after suffering an injury during his tennis match against Thomaz Bellucci, of Brazil. Image: Charles Krupa/AP

One week into the 2016 Olympics, we've already seen a highlight reel of awful injuries. We've seen a busted weightlifter, two major cycling wrecks, and a gymnast's shin broken cleanly in half. The same morbid fascination that draws eyes to car wrecks keeps us reading about and watching the injuries online, even if broadcast cameras cut away.

Only the gnarliest of injuries get media attention, but the actual rates of injury for Olympic sports vary widely between individual events and the summer and winter games. Softball is more dangerous than judo, amazingly, and ski jumping is safer than baseball.

Most Olympic injuries are minor, and come in the form of the constant aches, pains, and strains that athletes treat and ignore with an endless list of pseudoscientific cures. According to a meta-study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the most vulnerable body part in the Olympics is the knee. Between a fifth and a third of all competing soccer players, snowboarders, skiers, and hockey players (both field and ice) will injure their knees during each Olympics.

The type and range of movements competitors use makes a big difference in their potential for injury. The luge is a horrifying fast descent through a rock-hard ice tunnel, but as long as a luger doesn't crash, they stay safe. Badminton puts competitors through a ton of diving, twisting, and torquing, making it a bit more dangerous despite the warm connotations of childhood backyard games.

For most sports, about half of all injuries are minor, and half are bad enough to stop athletes from competing or training. A few sports, like handball and weightlifting, have a higher rate of competition-ending injury. One statistical anomaly: only around 3 percent of Mogul skiers reported an injury in their bumpy downhill event, but 100 percent of hurt Mogul skiers had to stop competing or training until they healed up.

Given the incredible feats of athleticism and competitive drive on display at the Olympics, it's remarkable that a majority of athletes aren't injured and head home from the games unscathed. The IOC spends a lot of time making Olympic events as safe as possible. Squeamish viewers (and cowardly aspiring athletes) should stick close to the five safest sports: sailing, biathlon, canoeing, rowing, and synchronized swimming. If more Olympic hosts look like Rio, though, sailors and rowers should probably keep their mouths closed. Infection-induced brain inflammation from the polluted bay may not technically be a rowing injury, but it is a much higher risk this year.