Here are some statistics from Australia that speak against the popular wisdom that Artistic Gymnastics is one of the most dangerous sports for children.
Coach and educator Trevor Dowdell looked at State injury surveillance reports and Australian hospital admissions due to sport injury.
Part of his conclusion:
… Injury can, and does, occur in gymnastic sports but gymnastics does not present the higher hospital ED presentations and hospital admission injury numbers, injury rates, and types of injuries found in many other popular Australian sports.
While sprains, strains and fractures predominate in all sports, face, eye, intracranial, internal organ, spine and nervous system injuries that are common in other sports were limited in gymnastics. Because of gymnastic’s stable “field of play” and closed skill type the most common gymnastic hazards (i.e. falls) can be anticipated and controlled. In summary, participation in gymnastics in the Australian club context should not be considered more dangerous (injurious) than other popular sports. …
If those statistics are correct, then fewer gymnasts are taken to hospital for ‘traumatic’ injury than I would have expected. Good news.
It doesn’t account for ‘overuse’ injuries that don’t require taking kids to the hospital, of course.
Download the article here (PDF)
I was disappointed to see that the report does not mention the death of Australian recreational adult gymnast Michelle Maitland on 18th June 2009. I would have been happier if Trevor had included the incident, even if not directly part of the statistics in the study.
Coaches should be reminded of that tragedy. We need all work every day to make sure kids in our gyms are kept as safe as possible.
One death or catastrophic injury is far worse than 1000 sprained ankles.
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UPDATE: Check the comments for a response by Dr. Bill Sands. Collecting and analyzing injury data is more problematic than I realized.
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