Which Olympic sports cause the most injuries?

Injuries are an unfortunate part of sport and can happen at any time.

Finding the hardest sports on the body can be split up into two categories. The first is sports that involve direct physical contact (combat or collision sports), which includes athletes using equipment like bikes or horses. The second is sports that require you to overuse the body.

According to the Time website, the Tokyo Olympics had over a thousand injuries. Here are the sports with the highest percentage of injuries at the 2020 Games and, subsequently, the hardest on the body.

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The most obvious Olympic Sport to kickstart the list is boxing, which had 79 injuries at the Tokyo Olympics, according to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, with over 40 of them being head injuries.

With steep turns, jumps, obstacles, and athletes going full pedal around a track, BMX racing has found itself as one of the most dangerous Olympic sports, having an injury rate on the same level as boxing. Fractures and concussions are the most popular injuries.

Sticking to the BMX theme, freestyle BMX is also one of the hardest sports on the body at the Olympics, with the risk of harm to the body going up as the athletes try more daredevil tricks in competition. With flips and scary jumps a given, the wear and tear on the body will go up.

At the Tokyo Olympics, skateboarding athletes had 17 injuries, with the majority coming to their wrists, feet, and pelvis. Skateboarding is notoriously hard on the body, with balance being the decisive factor in staying on the board or seriously hurting yourself.

The National Library of Medicine reports that 24% of 293 karate athletes have suffered a serious knee injury in their career, with the knees a real target to kick in the sport, and a lot of the power required comes from the knees. With headshots legal, concussions and fractures are also common.

Handball requires the players to be able to throw a ball at a rapid intensity, subsequently causing major shoulder and arm issues. The sport is played on a hard floor, increasing the risk of planted knees and causing ACL injuries or foot problems, the Rehband website reports.

Wrestling had 46 injuries at the Tokyo Olympics, with injuries to knees, head, and shoulders being the most common during a match. The art of wrestling is to grapple and hold the opponent in uncomfortable places, and regularly, it causes joint issues to either the opponent or the athlete in control.

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