KEY POINTS:
A skier hits a jump, takes off into a sudden silence, glides above the snow, lands badly and with an innocuous pop from the knee feels a pain that would bring tears to Tarzan.
The bad landing has torn the skier's anterior cruciate ligament. It could well be a year, and thousands of ACC dollars, before the skier is back in skis again.
But science could be the tool needed to cut the rate of those injuries, Auckland University PhD student Nico Kurpiers believes.
Based in the university's Department of Sport and Exercise Science, Mr Kurpiers is due to begin studying the impact of freestyle skiing on the body over the coming European winter.
His ultimate goal is to use the research's findings to alter the way ski gear is designed, and in doing so make freestyle skiing a far safer proposition for those with the unenviable capacity to tip over.
Each year more than 11,000 new injury claims are lodged in New Zealand because of skiing and snowboarding. The taxpayer-bill for those injuries was a cool $12 million in the last year alone.
The majority of freestyle skiing injuries involve the knee, particularly the ACL. Located inside the knee joint, the AC ligament connects the femur (thigh) and tibia (shin) bones, and is key in the knee remaining stable yet flexible. A tear to the ligament usually requires surgery and lengthy rehabilitation.
But Mr Kurpiers' research - the first of its kind - will analyse the movements and forces encountered when skiing, and look at how equipment can be adjusted to compensate for those factors and reduce injury.
Freestyle skiing, especially that involving moguls (small mounds formed by the snow kicked up when skiers turn) and jumps, were now a permanent component of skiing competitions, Mr Kurpiers said.
A feature of the Olympic Winter Games since 1988, the style had caught on with both professional and recreational skiers.
Such skiing put more stress on the body, particularly the legs, than traditional skiing, he said.
His study will use force measurements, high speed video, and motion analysis techniques. From those he plans to model the forces leg joints have to absorb when freestyle skiing.
Mr Kurpiers will head to Switzerland to carry out the research in the 2008-09 winter. Switzerland's stable climate, and the access the country would give him to the professional skiing community, had led to the location choice, he said.
