It’s another gold for Canada as Dara Howell from Huntsville, Ontario topped the podium in women’s slopestyle skiing in its inaugural Winter Games appearance. And what a debut it was.

Howell was joined on the podium by teammate Kim Lamarre who took home the bronze in the event. It was a special day for Canada on the hill, but for anyone who watched the competition, both in qualifications and the final round, the sheer abundance of crashes was shocking.

Quite simply, the course in Sochi was dangerous.

So dangerous in fact, that at times it was a relief just to see a skier complete a run in one piece. Yuki Tsubota of Whistler, BC fell victim to the course during her final run, landing just short on her final jump, slamming into the ground ski’s flying off.

This was by far the most horrific accident on the day but there were plenty of others. There was a sense of fear in the eyes of some skiers, and although this was the first year of the event, there remains plenty of issues to be reviewed.

A number of skiers in the qualifying round had no business being there. They struggled over the smaller rails and jumps, often pulling out before reaching the larger ones.

While the balmy conditions in Sochi surely did not aid the athletes’ performances, it was a battle for many to gain enough speed to clear the jumps. On this day, the combination of a difficult course and raised Olympic expectations resulted in ultimate carnage. As CBC’s broadcasters pointed out, judges emphasized to the women that degree of difficulty would suffer if jumps were not attempted off the largest of the launching pads. And if a skier were to opt for a more manageable jump on the side, that trick better be extraordinary.

Do you risk your health, on a course where your peers are crashing constantly, to take a shot a the podium and the glory that comes with a medal? Yuki Tsubota did. She knew she needed the ride of her life, and she was having it too. Until her final jump – where, after a slight loss of speed, she made a split-second decision to attempt a complicated trick on a dangerous course and the result was a gut-wrenching crash. Early reports say she may have a broken jaw.

This is not by any means to knock the event. It proved itself worthy of an Olympic spot, captivating a room of young men early on a Tuesday morning. We were cheering and cringing and high-fiveing throughout, and our sleep deprivation was made all the sweeter by a Canadian Gold and Bronze. However, alterations need to be made to this sport in future years. Safety has to become a priority and this track, on this day, was clearly out of the league of most of the athletes.

Well, most of the athletes not named Dara Howell and Kim Lamarre. Congrats ladies on bringing home the hardware.

Gold winner Dara Howell and bronze winner Kim Lamarre celebrate their medal wins in freestyle skiing #wearewinter pic.twitter.com/zkM9v9L12t — John Lehmann (@JohnLehmann) February 11, 2014

By Ian Brackman