The recent tbi of Jamie has caused me to think about something that I have pondered after Sarah's death and other major injuries. That is, are these injuries avoidable and is anyone to blame?

Every time I watch a girl's ski comp that is on a men's course, it looks sketchy as fuck. There is simply no way that most of the girls have the skills to hit Dew Tour, x games, or olympic sized jumps with their current level of skill, strength, and body awareness. I remember watching a woman who is pro practicing rodeos on a jump at breck last year in freeway, and every time she went I thought she would fucking die. It all somehow came together for her that day, but when I see shit like that I think it's only a matter of time until it goes very wrong. Surely I am not the only one who thinks this.

Jamie was on the US team so she had a group of private coaches in addition to the US team coaches. I remember one year at the whistler ppos she was doing inverts off a rail or something and several people joked that it looked like she was going to die and upon looking at some more recent footage i saw huge crashes that could have resulted in bad injuries. So I ask, should one of her coaches have told her to slow down and get better at the fundementals first? Should the competition holders have put the girls on a smaller course? It was Jamie's job to ski within her ability range, but that doesn't mean others didn't have some responsibility. A gymnastics coach would get sued if a girl broke her neck on the high bar because her coach put her on it before becoming proficient on the low bar...

I think we need to examine a fucked up system where girls are encouraged to do shit way out of their ability range. There have already been big crashes and there will be others the way things are going. I hate how people act like this shit is totally unlucky and unforeseeable when it looks like its just a matter of time to the educated observer. As things are, like half the girl competitors are out at any given time from knee injuries, but those are kinda the least of my concern as they generally don't fuck up your whole life. I guess what I'm saying is that I think that if the status quo remains in tact, I don't want anybody acting shocked when the next rbi, death or paralysis occurs.

This may all seem kind of rambling because I'm not sure who if anybody is at fault, but I do know this shit is fucked up. When the thirteen year old boys, of equal ability to the top women, compete at USSA finals in Copper they are on a smaller course. The pro women should be on a smaller course too and we need to reexamine how girls are incentivized to take inappropriate risk in free skiing. Maybe if we did that, more girls would actually take part in the sport and the talent pool would grow large enough that one day they could compete on larger courses.