Ever since their have been sports their have been those sports that when you watch you can't help thinking, "what the hell all those people thinking." Rodeo is one of those sports. This sport originated out of cattle herding in Mexico. The point of the Rodeo is to see how long a someone can stay on a very irritated bull. One of the main staples of this sport is the cowboy hat that the riders wear.
This staple is slowly disappearing from the ring and being replaced with helmet with a titanium grille. This gear is not mandatory but is becoming a repeatedly seen staple in the National Finals Rodeo. Out of the forty-five riders in the finals it was the first time that riders wearing the helmets outnumbered those who did not.
Although this sport only lasts around 8 seconds or less it has been show to be more dangerous then other extreme sports. Out of 15 bull rides it has been seen that at least one ends in an injury, mostly concussions. Even after this statistics the Rodeo Association has not made helmet mandatory. Right now the large majority of riders are wearing them based on their past experiences.
As with all sports injury is inevitable but if their is a way to stop them then it is believed that those precautions should be taken. In soccer the players wear shin guards, in football pads, helmets and mouth guards, then in snowboarding helmets are always warn. Hopefully in time helmets will become mandatory for riders.
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"if their is a way to stop them then it is believed that those precautions should be taken"
ReplyDeleteLike in gymnastics, it is possible to sprain an ankle on a dismount. Competitors are not required to wear ankle braces. There is a certain purity of the sport that has to be honored, and a side effect of performance that needs to be considered. Maybe these helmets throw off the balance of the rider or prevent them from being able to see where the bull is going. At some point, it stops being about rules of the competition and starts being about choices of the individual.