Humans have been playing sports for thousands of years, with injuries and sometimes even death being expected.
But when we look at the physical consequences modern athletes endure, what is the most dangerous sport in the world?
If we simply look at who gets injured the most often, US hospital data—collected by the CPSC in 2016—found that for males, football and soccer cause a significant proportion of injuries, while for women, soccer and baseball almost top the list.
But the number one sport for both sexes was basketball, with 190,453 injuries for men and 34,707 for women.
A study of injuries among NBA athletes over a 17-year period found that lateral ankle sprains were the most common, while a separate study found that those who wore shoes with air cells in the heel were 4.3 times more likely to injure their ankle—so you might want to ditch your Nike airs.
But minor injuries can happen for any sport and hardly deserve the title of most dangerous; take curling for example, which has a higher injury rate than speed skating and luge.
Or snowboarding, where 8% of injuries take place when loading or unloading off the ski lift—as the lifts are actually designed for skiers.
Luge, which involves riding a sled laying on your back at speeds up to 150 km/h will put you at a 40% risk of injury, however only 4% of those injuries result in missing more than one day of practice.
So what about... death?
In terms of fatalities, a report by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research found that between 1982 and 2016, the most fatalities in high school sports came from football, with 133 deaths.
