![handle is hein.hackneytwo/spfl0006 and id is 1 raw text is: July-August 2021 * Volume 6, Issue 1 Route To: /
SPORTS FACILITIES
How the law affects the sports facilities indust' and the LAW
Who's At Fault When 21
Ultramarathoners Die in a Race?
By Jon Heshka, Associate Professor
at Thompson Rivers University
n May 22,2021,21 ultramarathon-
ers died in the world's single largest
mass casualty incident during a race. It
occurred in the Yellow River Stone Forest
Park near Baiyin, a city in China's Gansu
province.
An ultramarathon is any race longer than
a marathon which is 26.2 miles. The Baiyin
ultramarathon was 62 miles in length.
Like marathons and triathlons which
used to be on the lunatic fringe but are now
mainstream, ultramarathons have exploded
in popularity. More than 600,000 people
participated in an ultramarathon in 2018,
an increase of nearly 350 percent during
the past decade, and nearly 1,700 percent
from the 1990s.
Incidents and injuries are not uncom-
mon in ultramarathons. Fifty-one runners
died running and racing mountains in
Western Europe between 2008 and 2019.
No aggregate figures are available for the
United States. It is fair to claim though that
participants who compete in these events
are aware of the hazards and consent to the
inherent risks ordinarily associated with
such events.
For example, the Barkley Marathon,
which has been immortalized in a Netflix
documentary titled The Race That Eats Its
Young is a 100-mile ultramarathon trail
race with 60,000 feet of elevation gain in
the Cumberland Mountains within Frozen
Head State Park in Tennessee and has no
aid stations except water at two points along
the route. Its $1.60 registration fee is a sign
of what to expect for support and safety.
The toll taken on the bodies of ultra-
marathoners is sometimes brutal. Feet can
SFL Editor Gil Fried Joins
Faculty at University of
West Pierida
The Impact of Governmental
Immunity on Injuries Sustained
on School Grounds
Where We Stand -or Sit -on
Foul Ball Liability
Football Wthout the Fans:
Effect of Empty Stadiums
During Pandemic
NASCAR, Penn National
Gaming Expand Strategic
Allance
OKC Thunder Announce 15-
Year Arena Naming Rights Deal
See Who's at Fault on Page 10
Quadriplegia and Fatality Risk from Inadequate Basketball
Court Buffer Zones: The Time to Act is Now
By Joseph J. Wadland
On March 14, 1970, Richard Atkinson, a
sophomore at Bates College in Lewiston
ME, lost his footing during an intramural
basketball game and slammed into an un-
padded brick wall. He died the next day
from head injuries.1 Bryant Gumbel, the
then sports editor ofthe student newspaper
1 Bates College, The Bates Student- volume 96
number 20-Mareh 21, 1970, atp. 1. (1970).
The Bates Student. 1593.
wrote: [y]et to sit back and say that he
smashed into an exposed brickwall less than
fifteen feet away, and accept it simply for
that, is senseless. As anyone who has been
in the Bates gym realizes, the west wall in
the gym is brick; it is bare; and it is only
about fifteen feet away from the edge of
the court. As anyone who has been in any
other gym realizes, any walls that close to
the court are in almost all cases covered
with relatively inexpensive wrestling mats.
Bryant Gumbel urged that steps be
taken in the immediate future... to rid
the gym of the danger of an exposed brick
wall... [so] that the next time any accident
involving that wall occurs, the writer,
whoever he may be, will also be able to
say that the athletic department cannot
rightfully bear the blame. There are some
who will say that Rich was probably the
only person to hit that wall in the last fifty
See Quadriplegia on Page 12
HACKNEY PUBLICATIONS (HACKNEYPUBLICATIONS.COM,
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