Injured British skier Rowan Cheshire joins Sochi casualties

BRITISH skier Rowan Cheshire became the latest casualty of the Sochi Winter Olympics when she was knocked out during a training run ahead of this week's ski halfpipe competition. The teenager, who later posted a picture of herself in hospital, was stretchered off the course and taken to hospital after landing heavily on her face on Sunday. She was unconscious for several minutes after the crash and the British Olympic Association later confirmed she had concussion. She was kept in hospital overnight. Cheshire is the first notable British casualty of the Games, and her participation in Thursday's qualification event is now in question. "The session she was taking part in had been postponed from Saturday because temperatures had topped 15C. Snowboarders had previously complained about the shape and condition of the halfpipe, prompting last-minute changes," reports the Daily Mail.

Ski halfpipe is making its Olympic debut at Sochi, and is regarded as one of the most dangerous disciplines at the Games. The Daily Telegraph reports that those dangers "were underlined when Canadian Sarah Burke, a former world champion and four-time X Games gold medallist, was killed in a training accident in 2012". Cheshire's crash comes after a series of accidents involving skiers and snowboarders at the Games. On Saturday Russian ski-cross athlete Maria Komissarova suffered a horrific training crash which left her with a broken back. She has been flown to a specialist clinic in Germany for a second operation but it is unclear whether she will be paralysed. "There have been plenty of other casualties besides Cheshire and Komissarova," reports The Times. Helene Olafson, the Norwegian cross snowboarder, and Jacqueline Hernandez of the United States were carried off the course after sustaining injuries during seeding runs, while aerials skier Christopher Lambert from Switzerland also suffered a suspected dislocated elbow in a heavy fall." Canadian slopestyle competitor Yuki Tsubota was left with a broken cheekbone after a spectacular crash in the final of her event. The International Olympics Committee maintains that the injury statistics are no different from any other Winter Games, says the paper, although it notes that the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park has now started to "resemble a battleground".

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