Isn’t that the short-story about the manhunter?
Russian roulette with a magazine loader. Not many people play, but very few survive.
lots of "I think"s, "I reckon"s, and "It’s gotta be"s floating around here but no data?
I think Muffin is thinking of the Onbashira Festival that takes place every 6 or 7 years in Japan, to commemorate the Suwa Shrine (it’s thought to be the oldest festival in Japan). Many are injured, though few are killed, when they pull enormous logs to the top of a hill and then ride them down – only men from the Suwa region may participate. The goal is to be on the log when it reaches the bottom of the hill, even if you fall off it on the way down and have to jump back on. Found a link about it here.
I wouldn’t consider this a “sport”, however.
That would be tlachtli, as played by the Aztecs (and the Mayans, check out their acousitcally interesting ball court if you ever get to Chichen Itza). As you say, no hands: just hips and elbows to get the solid rubber ball through a relatively small stone hope. In its day, with a 50% mortality rate, it surely would’ve qualified as world’s most dangerous.
Some stats on this site support the theory that horse riding is more dangerous than you might think:
Yeah but anyone stoopid enough to fish for rocks is going to suffer a nasty accident sooner or later anyway, aren’t they?
I have invented a sport I like to call “Poking”. It involves poking strangers. I think that this sport has the potential to become the world’s most dangerous sport.
The exact figure for bicycle accidents and fatalities worldwide is a bit elusive, since most bicycle accidents go unreported. In the US alone last year there were nearly 1,000 deaths attributed to bicycling and over 500,000 accidents reported in hospitals.
Worldwide the fatalities are estimated at 100,000 deaths and reported accidents range between 10-20 million. Whether these are “sport” related, well that’s your call.
BTW- 95% of these figures pertain to our children.
A few links…http://www.rospa.org.uk/pdfs/road/cyclist_safety.pdf
http://www.massbike.org/info/statistics.htm
http://www.securityworld.com/community/statistics/bikesafetystats.html
and try the US Dept. of Transportation, the link wouldn’t work, but I bet y’all can find it out!
Peace