Samenvatting

Purpose: The aim of this study was to asses if a combination of events related to injuries (surrogate measures) in Ski Cross (SX) is more likely to lead to crashing than one surrogate measure and how it differs between male and female athletes. Method: The data collected by using video analysis on the official TV-footage of the 2023/2024 World Cup SX season for male and female athletes, were surrogate measures of injury risk (Crash, Contact, Avoided Contact, Out Of Balance, Undershooting, Overshooting and Line Deviation). The surrogate measures were normalized to per hour raced (phr), based on the number of athletes and fastest time per heat. Non-parametric tests were performed to asses the differences between genders and relationships between surrogate measures for both genders. Results: Male athletes experienced for all surrogate measures a higher occurrence compared to female athletes. No significant difference was found for Crash between genders. For male athletes a fairly strong relationship was found between Contact and Out Of Balance. For female athletes a fairly strong correlation was found between Crash and Out Of Balance, as well as moderate relationships between Crash and Contact, and Contact and Out Of Balance. For male athletes a combination of surrogate measures lead to more crashes than a single surrogate measure. For female athletes, the opposite was found; A single surrogate measure leads more often to crashes than a combination of surrogate measures.
Conclusion: For male athletes a combination of surrogate measures more occurs more often then a single surrogate measure. Female athletes however, experience the opposite; A single surrogate measure leads more frequently to crashes than a combination of surrogate measures. This together with the lower number of occurrences of surrogate measures for female athletes than male athletes, indicates that female athletes have more difficulties with managing the courses and have less and shorter battles for positions. Additionally, the correlations between Crash and Contact, and Crash and Out Of Balance for female athletes and no correlations for these variables for male athletes, indicate that male athletes are better at regaining control. Therefore, suitable courses should be designed to accommodate the differences between male and female athletes.