The Cost of Doing Business
Sailors of three high-performance Olympic classes have been plagued with injuries. Sure, faster is fun, but athlete sustainability is a looming question.
On a Nacra 17, the otherwise simple act of tacking puts immense strain on today’s Olympic hopeful. First, the crew comes off the wire and bends at the knees and hips into a squat, simultaneously stepping quickly, balancing on the mesh while stretching to grab the now-windward hull, pulling his or her body the rest of the way up, and rotating back into position. “They have to balance, they have to move in a way they’ve never had to move before,” says professional trainer Chris Herrera. “It’s a recipe for disaster in the lower body.”
Nacra, 49er and 49erFX sailors are the most injury-prone of the Olympic classes, with back and shoulder injuries most common in the 49er, and traumatic injuries from capsizing and impact with rigging most common in the FX and Nacra. “Foot-strap injuries, like broken foot bones and torn ligaments in the ankles, are common,” says 49erFX sailor Helena Scutt. “Concussions are also a serious concern as we work to keep these boats under control. Other boats only have to worry about the boom. We can swing around during a pitch pole and hit the gunwale.”
At the Sailing World Cup in Santander, Spain, in 2014, ISAF surveyed athletes in an effort to better understand the challenges of the newest classes. “We found that injuries occur more often in the newer Olympic sailing classes than in the older sailing classes,” says Darren Leong, the corresponding author on the study, initiated and funded by World Sailing. “There was a significantly higher injury prevalence seen in the 49erFX and 49er, which also reported the highest volume of acute injuries sustained in competition.”
