just read this a few moments ago that canadian freestyle skier died after suffering injuries 9 days ago at park city utah, the same halfpipe where Kevin Pearce sustained brain injury a few years ago.

[www.usatoday.com]







Edited 2 times. Last edit at 22.44hrs Thu 19 Jan 12 by paisleyboarder.

She'll be a huge, huge loss to the freestyle community. The X Games halfpipe is going to be a very subdued comp next weekend.

I don't think the fact that it happened at Park City can be directly related to Kevin's accident. Its a popular place for pros to train, resulting in them pushing themselves harder and higher. When you get to that stage and you're clearing 20ft out of the pipe, the difference between coming down on top of the pipe, landing perfectly back into the pipe or falling 45ft to the base of the pipe is sometimes only 2 or 3ft sideways pop.

Yeah terrible news. Things are unfortunately getting more dangerous. The envelope has been pushed so much in the past several years. Ever bigger halfpipes and kickers, along with more complex manoeuvres = more risk. There will inevitably be similar incidents, it's amazing there hasn't been more as it is.

The risks have always been there in snowsports competition - the downhill being the prime example. However while that is as safe as it possibly can be with the arrestor fences etc what can you do to make it safer when people are flying 40 feet straight up in the air?