Winter sports nation Germany-injuries in alpine ski racing and mass sports Statistics and injury mechanisms in winter sports and current trends in sports science

Background In Germany, winter sports are very popular. About 7 million people go skiing at least 6 days per season. The German national winter teams won about 50% of the Olympic medals for the last several Olympic games. The downside of winter sports is the everlasting high number of injuries. This affects both professionals and the large number of amateur skiers. Trend The ASU institute of German insurances and skiing association find a decreasing number of injuries overall and a decreasing number of inpatient stays in hospitals. Still, the knee is the most injured region of the body. There is an increasing number of ACL ruptures within the knee lesions. The numbers in professional teams have been monitored with the FIS surveillance system since 2006. The highest rates of knee injuries (41.3%) are found with the ski world cup teams all over the world. The most common injury mechanism is the slip-catch mechanism. In current sports science examinations of the German skiing association there are extremely high forces of more than three times the body weight found on the body during skiing. Slalom skiing is especially affected. To understand the popular carving ski technology, you must know about the waist and the edge angle of the ski. There can be enormous forces coming along with the skis that can hardly be controlled by the skier.